BenToWeb Rulesets XML 1.0

Resource Directory (RDDL document) for BenToWeb Rulesets XML 1.0.

Purpose and General Description

Rulesets XML is an XML vocabulary for identifying and referencing accessibility checkpoints, success criteria or rules. A Rulesets XML serves as a global map of rulesets such as WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0, Section 508 and BITV and as a bridge between test case metadata (possibly described using TCDL) and those rulesets. An example ruleset, used in the BenToWeb project, is available at http://bentoweb.org/refs/rulesets.xml. Rulesets XML uses the namespace http://bentoweb.org/refs/rulesets; a W3C XML Schema is available at http://bentoweb.org/refs/schemas/rulesets.xsd.

Structure of Rulesets XML

The parts of a rulesets file are named after the constituent parts of WCAG 2.0 but should be sufficiently generic to be used for other rulesets.

Ruleset

A Rulesets XML document contains one or more rulesets (ruleset elements). Examples of rulesets are WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0, Section 508 and BITV. Working drafts of rulesets can also count as rulesets; for example, it is possible to treat the 30 June 2005 Working Draft of WCAG 2.0 as a different ruleset than the 23 November 2005 Working Draft of WCAG 2.0. All that is necessary is that each rulesets has a different and stable URL.

Each ruleset has:

• a unique identifier, for example WCAG2_20051123 (id attribute, required);
• a URL (xlink:href attribute, required);
• a natural language (hrefLang attribute, required).

Guideline

A ruleset consists of one or more subdivisions or “guidelines”: each ruleset element contains one or more guideline elements.

Each guidelines has:

• a name, for example the guideline number in WCAG 2.0: 1.1, … (name attribute, required);
• a unique identifier, for example WCAG20-20051123_1.1 (id attribute, required);
• a URL (xlink:href attribute, optional);
• a natural language (hrefLang attribute, required).

Success Criterion

A “guideline” may consist of one or more subdivisions or “success criteria”: each guideline element can contain one or more successCriterion elements.

Each success criterion has:

• a name, for example the success criterion number in WCAG 2.0: 1 (name attribute, required);
• a level, for example the level in WCAG or BITV: 1 (level attribute, optional);
• a unique identifier, for example WCAG2_20051123_1.1_text-equiv-informative (id attribute, required);
• a natural language (hrefLang attribute, required).

Success criteria have no further subdivisions.

Example: BenToWeb's rulesets.xml

In BenToWeb's rulesets.xml, a ruleset consists of guidelines and a guideline may consist of success criteria. Depending on the ruleset, guidelines and success criteria refer to:

• guidelines and success criteria (WCAG 2.0); principles are not referenced;
• guidelines and checkpoints (WCAG 1.0);
• Anforderungen and Bedingungen (BITV);
• rules (Section 508 only knows rules).

The value of the name attribute of a guideline element corresponds to

• the guideline number in WCAG 1.0 [x] & WCAG 2.0 [x.y],
• the number of an Anforderung in BITV [x],
• the letter identifying a rule in Section 508.

The id attribute of the guideline element is required; name cannot serve this purpose because IDs must not start with a number.

For each guideline, all success criteria or checkpoints are listed as successCriterion elements. The value of the name attribute of a successCriterion element corresponds to

• checkpoint number in WCAG 1.0 [x.y],
• a success criterion number in WCAG 2.0 [y] — the level attribute is required,
• the number of a Bedingung in BITV [x.y],
• nothing in Section 508 because the rules have no subdivisions.

The level attribute is optional except for WCAG 2.0.