RE: Identifying results with color

Thanks, Joe,

> If I understand the functionality you've explained, I can search - this
email, for
> example - for multiple different words. These words are highlighted in
different
> colours depending on the word used. So 'email' may be highlighted in
green,
> 'search' may be highlighted in blue - is this what you mean? And you are
trying to
> convey the meaning of these different highlight colours to users who may
not be
> able to distinguish between the colours (but who can, presumably,
distinguish
> highlighted from non-highlighted words)

Almost. It is a complex application and there is the need to identify
different types of content. That is why the concept for the application
allows multiple colors for highlighting. The application will need to be
accessible to users with visual impairments and they may be using a contrast
mode (Windows) and then not be able to distinguish between marked and
unmarked text. The text would be given a background color, which is ignored
in contrast mode.
 
> If so, the word itself would seem to be the distinguishing feature - A
quick glance
> at the page and I see lots of blues and greens around the page indicating
> highlighted results, but even if I can't distinguish these shades from one
another
> (but can see that certain words are highlighted), all I need to is read
the
> highlighted words to distinguish them - I don't need the number 1 prefixed
to the
> word 'search' to tell the difference between that and another highlighted
search
> result 'email' as I can simply read the words. In which case, I don't see
that you
> need do anything involving numbers or other identifying features.

In a simple (one color) highlighting scheme there are plenty of
possibilities to conform to 1.4.1, for example giving a marked text a border
with the same color. When background is ignored in contrast mode, the border
will be shown in the text color and is usually perceivable. With two or even
three different colors there are further possibilities to distinguish marked
strings through text formating. But considering ten and more colors I don't
see a good solution using text formatting alone. That is why we are
considering adding numbers (or other characters) to the highlighted text.
 
> To semantically identify these results as being highlighted, for
screenreader users
> for instance, you can use the HTML5 <mark> element, presumably with
different
> classes for different search result terms.

Thanks. We will look into that. Is there any information on screenreader
support for that element?

Jan


--
Jan Eric Hellbusch 
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Web: http://2bweb.de     Twitter: www.twitter.com/2bweb
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Das Buch über barrierefreies Webdesign:
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Received on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 18:27:32 UTC