RE: December 2, 2004 - Agenda == Issue 317

Hi Becky

 

Good edits.  You have captured the sense very well.  

 

Lets use this as a base and tune it.

 

 

 

Couple things to look at  Becky - everybody :

 

 "functional information"   reads poorly.  You are trying to get away from
decoration?   Is decoration information?  Can we just say 'information'?

 

"differentiated by color"    Does this translate well?   Can we think of
simpler language to say this?

 

Thanks again Becky - our current wording does seem ambiguous. 


Gregg

 -- ------------------------------ 
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center 
University of Wisconsin-Madison 

  _____  

From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Becky_Gibson@notesdev.ibm.com
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 2:01 PM
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: Re: December 2, 2004 - Agenda == Issue 317

 


Regarding Issue 317 in the December 2, 2004 agenda: 

>Issue 317
><http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=317> 
>Need to clarify the group's position on color. What are the Groups
thoughts?

I looked through the comments in this issue and if you read the Success
criteria literally, it seems like we are discouraging color for visual only
effects.  The success criteria says, "Any information presented in color."
I'm not sure if that is what we really mean. For example, if I want to make
the starting word or letter of each paragraph a different color, is there
any accessibility reason for identifying that?  But this is "information
presented in color" so according to the guideline it should be marked in
more than just color.  I can argue that since the color change is made in
markup and a user can make a screen reader speak  the attributes of the text
it does meet the guideline. But, I could argue the same thing for a label
for a required form entry that I present in red, a screen reader can be made
to speak the red attribute for the label giving me the same information as a
user visually interacting with the page.   Is this accessible - I don't
think so. 

Thus, I think we need to rewrite the success criteria to specify that
interactive or functional information presented in color must also be
presented in an additional manner.  In the spirit of not criticizing without
suggesting an alternative, I took a start at a rewrite: 

<current wording> 
Level 1 Success Criteria for Guideline 1.3 
#3.  Any information presented through color is also available without color
(for example, through context or markup or coding that does not depend on
color). [I] 
Level 2 Success Criterion for Guideline 1.3 
#1. Information presented using color is also available without color and
without having to interpret markup (for example through context or text
coding). [V] 
</current wording> 

<proposed wording> 
Level 1 Success Criteria for Guideline 1.3 
#3. Any functional information differentiated by color is presented in a
manner that does not rely on color alone.  For example, the distinction can
additionally be determined through markup, context, characters or symbols
that accompany the color presentation. 
Note:  If markup is used, markup must be interpretable by a user agent so
that the user doesn't have to look at markup to determine meaning. 

Level 2 Success Criteria For Guideline 1.3 
#1. Any functional  information differentiated using color is presented in a
manner that does not rely on color alone and does not rely on interpreting
markup.  For example the distinction can additionally be determined through
context, characters, or symbols that accompany the color presentation. 
</proposed wording> 

Although I still think the Note in the Level 1 criterion about a user agent
interpreting markup can be used as a loop hole because screen readers can be
made to speak attributes. 

food for thought, 
-becky 


Becky Gibson
Web Accessibility Architect
                                                      
IBM Emerging Internet Technologies
5 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01886
Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101
Email:  <mailto:gibsonb@us.ibm.com> gibsonb@us.ibm.com