"Non-web document" scope mixes non-web origins and non-HTML formats without explaining the relationship

[mitch11-vispero]

Currently

The WCAG2ICT Note applies to “non-web documents”. The Note does not define 'non-web'; I understand its formal meaning from standards such as Section 508 and EN 301 549, which define a 'non-web document' as a document that is not a web page, and a 'web page' as a “non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI using HTTP” (same as WCAG).

In practice, practitioners widely interpret WCAG2ICT itself and those standards that incorporate it as applying to document formats such as PDFs, word processor files, spreadsheets, and presentations, regardless of whether the documents are accessed from a URI using HTTP.

This interpretation works fine in practice, because the guidance we wrote in WCAG2ICT for “non-web documents” actually works well for non-HTML documents regardless of whether they were retrieved from a web server.

The problem is that the Note’s formal scope of “non-web documents” is technically much more restrictive than the way the guidance is commonly interpreted and applied. If someone writes their own policy or methodology and follows the technical applicability closely, they would end up applying WCAG (without WCAG2ICT) to most non-HTML documents retrieved from the web, while applying WCAG2ICT only to the relatively uncommon cases of documents retrieved through other channels such as email or removable media.

Proposed

Clarify how the term “non-web document” should be understood in WCAG2ICT, and explain why in practice the Note’s guidance is often applicable to document formats more broadly.

Possible approaches:

• Clarifying in the introduction or scope discussion that many WCAG2ICT interpretations arise from characteristics of documents as a content type, not only from their delivery outside the web — and that's okay.
• Clarifying the relationship between “document” and “non-web document” in the Key Terms section, including how document technologies (such as PDFs, spreadsheets, and presentations) may appear in both web and non-web contexts.