Re: Requirement for 200% text increase nearly impossilbe to meet in most cases

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:03 AM, <noreply@w3.org> wrote:

>
> Name: Detlev Fischer
> Email: fischer@dias.de
> Affiliation: DIAS GmbH
> Document: TD
> Item Number: G178
> Part of Item: Applicability
> Comment Type: technical
> Summary of Issue: Requirement for 200% text increase nearly impossilbe to
> meet in most cases
> Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
> In addition to the comment regarding the test case spec. in G178, it should
> be noted that for most web pages using several columns, the requirement for
> a 200% increase of text size will be impossible to meet (the same goes for
> browser based text-only resizing) and is therefore likely to be ignored.
> Such ignorance is helped by the interpretation of alternative options to
> meet Success Criterion 1.4.4 (Resize text), since  option 1 (G142) suggests
> that supporting zoom resizing (which most modern browsers offer out oif the
> box without any effort by the designer) is already sufficient. This appears
> as a disincentive regarding the provision of text-only resizing and the
> additional effort of creating fluid layouts that resize gracefully.
>
> Proposed Change:
> The (additional) requirement to allow a more modest text-only resizing
> (say, 150%) might raise the bar in a meaningful way and not de-incentivise
> designers in the same way as the current all-to-easy way of meeting success
> criterion 1.4.4 *without any effort*.
>
> ================================
Response from the Working Group
================================
If the two columns are equal in width then it is impossible to not meet this
criteria with ZOOM.  Simply increase the zoom to 200% and the column will
fit very nicely on-screen and allow the user to read all of the text in the
column without horizontal scrolling. They can then move over to the other
column and read the other, without horizontal scrolling as well.

Note that the horizontal scrolling requirement is only at level AAA.
Therefore the zoom would satisfy level AA unless of course the browser does
not support this. Therefore this technique would work at level AA but not at
level AAA for a full width page, but it would work at AAA for a page with 2
equal width columns.

You will note that G178 is listed as sufficient for 1.4.4 which is at level
AA but it is not listed as sufficient for 1.4.8 which is at level AAA.


Loretta Guarino Reid, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Gregg Vanderheiden, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Michael Cooper, WCAG WG Staff Contact


On behalf of the WCAG Working Group