Re: FW: Proposed Final Design for W3C Technical Reports style in 2016

Hi, John:


John Foliot writes:
> Hi Janina,
> 
>  
> 
> Can we add this to the agenda for this week? 
> 
It's already on the agenda that went out last night. I appreciate, and
have tracked your email thread.

Important request -- Please change the cc's to include public-apa@w3.org
rather than the old PF list (which is no longer accepting postings). I
think we want this dicussion in the APA archives:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-apa/latest


Janina

>  
> 
> Thanks.
> 
>  
> 
> JF
> 
>  
> 
> From: John Foliot [mailto:john.foliot@deque.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2016 8:18 AM
> To: 'fantasai' <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>; 'David Carlisle' <davidc@nag.co.uk>; spec-prod@w3.org
> Cc: chairs@w3.org; w3c-ac-forum@w3.org; 'W3C WAI Protocols & Formats' <public-pfwg@w3.org>; 'public-low-vision-a11y-tf' <public-low-vision-a11y-tf@w3.org>; 'Wayne Dick' <wayneedick@gmail.com>; 'Srinivasu Chakravarthula' <srinivasu.chakravarthula@deque.com>
> Subject: RE: Proposed Final Design for W3C Technical Reports style in 2016
> 
>  
> 
> fantasai [mailto:fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net] wrote:
> 
> > > Fantasai, while I appreciate that you've made the link less faint, the
> 
> > > color used (#C0C0C0) still fails a color-contrast test.
> 
> > > ( <http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html#fg=C0C0C0,bg=FF> http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html#fg=C0C0C0,bg=FF
> 
> > > FFFF)
> 
> > >
> 
> > > To be crystal clear, the WCAG 2.0 Recommendation only speaks of “text”
> 
> > > when referencing color contrast (so for example, it does NOT speak to
> 
> > > icons, etc.), however since **underlined text** is indeed recognized
> 
> > > as a link, I would argue that the color contrast requirement would be
> 
> > > in play here, as the underlining is part of the active text, and that
> 
> > > the visual indicator should be as visible as the text it is underlining.
> 
> > 
> 
> > It's a reasonable argument on the surface, but actually, I think the contrast
> 
> > requirement for an underline isn't as stringent.
> 
>  
> 
> Therein lies one of our problems: this has not been definitively clarified. I believe this is an open question for the Low Vision Task Force (now copied on this thread), who are addressing issues related to this user-group that were not addressed in the original WCAG 2.0 publishing time-frame. I'll gently push back on your assertion, as I believe it is the combination of text and underline - together as a visual whole - that signals to most readers that a link is indeed a link. In other words, it's not "  link text ", nor is it _______, but rather, the combination of the two:  link text
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> > Unlike text, for an underline you
> 
> > only need to be able to distinguish that it's there, not distinguish which of a
> 
> > variety of shapes it is.
> 
>  
> 
> Correct, the low vision user needs to distinguish that it is there. If it is too faint in color contrast, it is not perceivable.
> 
>  
> 
> > I've tried increasing the contrast, but I run into a few problems trying to do that.
> 
> > I have to balance:
> 
> >    * contrast with the foreground color, so that it's visible
> 
> >    * contrast with the text color, so that it's easy to visually filter
> 
> >      out the link style and focus on the paragraph text
> 
> >    * contrast between visited and non-visited links, so that they can
> 
> >      be distinguished
> 
> > 
> 
> > One thing I could do is to swap the darker color for unvisited links, and the
> 
> > lighter color (harder to see, but also less intrusive) for visited ones.
> 
>  
> 
> Balancing all of the functional requirements you’ve listed, I’d say that this is a compromise that might work, but I am loathe to be the final arbitrator of that decision. W3C also has a mandate to be conformant to WCAG, and how we thread this particular needle will require some consensus. I will take the Action to socialize this further inside of the WAI domain, and specifically will ask the LVTF to weigh in here.
> 
>  
> 
> > 
> 
> > > Suggestion: could you lighten the line weight, darken it and perhaps
> 
> > > use dashes or dots instead? (see in-page links at WCAG -
> 
> >  <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20).
> 
> > > I’m not a graphics person however, so feel free to explore other
> 
> > > alternatives. Jonathan Snook’s online color contrast tool is quite
> 
> > > useful
> 
> > > there:  <http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html> http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html
> 
> > 
> 
> > Lightening the weight or using dashes/dots instead would allow me to follow
> 
> > the letter of the WCAG rule without actually following its
> 
> > spirit: lighter-weight or discontinuous lines are perceptually lighter in color, even
> 
> > though the screen pixels will test at a higher contrast.
> 
> > So I don't think that's actually helping real people, even though it'll help the
> 
> > color-contrast checker.
> 
>  
> 
> LVTF, do we have any research or feedback on this point that either supports or dispels?
> 
>  
> 
> > 
> 
> > I can do the opposite, though: make them thicker, so that they're easier to
> 
> > perceive even though the colors are the same. :)
> 
> > 
> 
> > It would look like this:
> 
> >     <http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/design/w3c-restyle/2016/sample> http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/design/w3c-restyle/2016/sample
> 
>  
> 
> This looks better *to me*, but again I’ll seek some other feedback going forward. Thanks for being patient Fantasai! :)
> 
>  
> 
> JF
> 
>  
> 
> > 
> 
> > ~fantasai
> 

-- 

Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.443.300.2200
   sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
  Email: janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures http://www.w3.org/wai/apa

Received on Tuesday, 5 January 2016 17:10:34 UTC