- From: Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net>
- Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2016 12:09:59 -0500
- To: John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>
- Cc: public-apa@w3.org, "'fantasai'" <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>
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