Re: Does the APA WG look at CSS accessibility issues? If so, css-highlight-api is a good one to look at

This seems like a very good APA issue to me. Has particular COGA relevance as well.

This message was Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse any typographic errors.

On Nov 12, 2021, at 11:57 AM, David Fazio <dfazio@helixopp.com> wrote:

 APA is currently right now. Not sure about this particular issue though

This message was Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse any typographic errors.

On Nov 12, 2021, at 11:56 AM, Mary Jo Mueller <maryjom@us.ibm.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

During TPAC I attended a session on CSS accessibility topics to gather information about current challenges where one of the issues struck a chord with me.

Has the APA WG been looking at CSS accessibility and is the group aware of the conversation on the CSS highlight API? See Issue 6498 on how the CSS highlight API is exposed to the accessibility tree<https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/6498>(https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/6498). I'm concerned that they're only thinking about attaching color names to highlights or limited meanings (find or spelling and grammar only), where there is the opportunity to associate any meaningful name or label which the author could define.

An example: In data analysis, highlights are used to indicate any number of things - errors, outliers, or like the example in my comment in the issue: user sentiments. Highlights are also used in data analysis for medical literature to highligh medical conditions or symptom keywords.

I added a comment to that effect, but from rest of the conversation they are assuming that "accessibility tools" as they call them are way more sophisticated than they are. That using an accessibility tool like a screen reader you can assign other text to the color name. I don't quite know how that could be done, as screen readers simply parse and speak what they discover in the DOM.

I have to admit, I am a little out of my technology expertise with CSS. I don't know how much CSS information is transposed into the DOM for a screen reader to access but it seems that if it is possible, it is a good opportunity to make a wide range of author-defined highlights accessible to screen reader users.

Do you know if there are accessibility experts in APA that have more CSS knowledge who can chime in on the conversation?

Best regards,

Mary Jo
_____________________________________________
Mary Jo Mueller
Accessibility Standards Program Manager
IBM Accessibility

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." ~John Quincy Adams