Re: Make it easy to find the most important thing

Hi Abi,

Perhaps I’m missing something, but are there sites where you cannot see the start of the main content area?

It just seems so counter to the purpose of creating a site in the first place. I assume some artistic sites might, but in general the site author is going to make something visible under the top banner, and they would define that as the main content…

I must be missing something!

-Alastair


From: "James A." <A.James@soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wednesday, 22 May 2019 at 22:05
To: Rachael Montgomery <rachael@accessiblecommunity.org>, Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
Cc: COGA TF <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Make it easy to find the most important thing


Hi Rachael and Alistair

My intention was to try to put into words that the point where the skip to content link would place focus or where the main region started should be visible on screen without scrolling but I don’t think I phrase it correctly! I was trying to say that the start of the content should be visible, expecting that not all content could be on screen. If we can find a way of phrase the criteria without requiring the use of regions and landmarks then we would remove the need to define important content.

Best wishes

Abi


From: Rachael Montgomery <rachael@accessiblecommunity.org>
Sent: 22 May 2019 16:29
To: James A. <A.James@soton.ac.uk>; Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
Cc: public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org
Subject: Re: Make it easy to find the most important thing

To add to Alastairs comments, I believe the concept of important content will be easier to include and test in Silver.
On May 22, 2019, 10:59 AM -0400, Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com<mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com>>, wrote:


I think it helps to consider a variety of example sites for this sort of thing, I put a few screenshots into a folder that should be visible to everyone:
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AqcLQeCk6CjwiJoJcZDLrNuw4QYkzg<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2F1drv.ms%2Ff%2Fs!AqcLQeCk6CjwiJoJcZDLrNuw4QYkzg&data=01%7C01%7CA.James%40soton.ac.uk%7C3b61fdbdc35341884f4508d6deca818b%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=Zs0YpdchEcNwCTPl97ldXMsBEBoAHdnH7LcBzoiYQ2E%3D&reserved=0>
(No alt text, but look at the actual site if you can’t see the image.)


> I wasn’t involved in 2.1 so not party to all the details that were discussed at that time. I think your proposals a good basis but I am concerned they only mention controls not content more widely.

I’m not sure how it could apply to content? For example, if you have very little content and the site keeps everything in the viewport, that’s fine. But if you have more content?

For example, my outlook email is empty, but gmail is full and the email listing scrolls.

> “content following repeated navigational elements must be visible without scrolling in the main modalities of the content.”

Looking at the BBC example<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftcnbpq.bl.files.1drv.com%2Fy4mlG1BeopeV2rB29W3SCQbzge8lAsyY62RTAYyAK0CczFAV9xKeokKckoFnJze0B-hdIWPhbJaWKyj0kDePwKclGaQL6aMpSwI2XCdBN-8-C6tjmn6W_IYRylBReetw0a9V4xORR_jdovEjPOGRcD8TbvyNcvI01aV3RAToaTpCGoJb-CmxXjTPcG7YmQwboc5GIl7GM0woPFREr-t3aR6Zg%2FBBC%2520-%2520Home%2520large.jpg%3Fpsid%3D1&data=01%7C01%7CA.James%40soton.ac.uk%7C3b61fdbdc35341884f4508d6deca818b%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=6qYpHcj%2BueUwDDZD70lMAehv3OY%2BHMy5BhfwHOdsjuY%3D&reserved=0> there is repeated navigation at the bottom with a copyright notice afterwards  (a common pattern), so it appears that copyright notice should be visible without scrolling?

If it were re-phrase to only be the top navigation, I’m wondering when a site could fail that? If it applied to all content that would be impossible, if it is just the start of the content then wouldn’t everyone pass?

Going from Rachael’s draft where the intent is that:
“People with low executive function, impaired memory, and other cognitive and learning disabilities may not be able to find features that are not immediately visible on the screen, either because they are “below the fold” and that require the use of the scroll bar or because they do not stand out from other features.”

Would I be correct in assuming the gmail / outlook examples are good ones? All the main controls are attached to the viewport.

Looking at the draft SC text, it focuses on controls which I think is more reasonable:
> “Essential controls are prominent  and visible without scrolling in the main modalities of the content.“

Essential<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FTR%2FWCAG21%2F%23dfn-essential&data=01%7C01%7CA.James%40soton.ac.uk%7C3b61fdbdc35341884f4508d6deca818b%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=pgGXfHjTGJ3qpy6WNwcu9G5bopqnvDhMkBcHV7GdtQ4%3D&reserved=0> has a closely defined meaning in WCAG, I’m not 100% sure that aligns with the intent here, but I can’t think of a better term off-hand.

“prominent and visible” is going to be tricky across multiple screen sizes, taking the gmail example: none of the controls are available on the mobile sized version because there isn’t space. They use a hamburger menu.

I think that will be a common issue, the BBC page hides controls the smaller screen you are on, moving many items into the ‘more’ menu.

There physically isn’t a way of fitting everything in, so I think “available without scrolling” would be better, i.e. you might have to click on something to open it.

Also, I know ‘main modalities of content’ wasn’t Rachael’s phrase, but I can’t remember what it means and find it rather confusing! (I assume it’s not just me?)

So I would suggest:
“Essential controls are available without scrolling.”

The main discussion then will be how to define what is an essential control, given that a site/page may have many, many functions and users would each have different tasks / priorities…

-Alastair