RE: WCAG 2.2 status - Visual indicators

Hi Abi,

I generally agree with your points, but I think the scope of visual-indicators is a very different situation to the current SCs.

We have one that says that if you have navigation, it must in a consistent location, and another about using the same name for the same component.

However, visual indicators applies across a multitude of possible components (links, buttons, sliders, tabs etc), *multiplied* by the many design factors that might be the indictors (e.g. size, spacing, foreground/background color, text-decoration, borders, arrow icons etc)

Just taking the examples you posted [1], if the page consistently used the black-background 'button' style for non-interactive components, and a plain style for links, that is consistent but un-helpful.

Overall I think we're agreeing about the process that needs to happen. With a good catalogue it will be a bit like an IA project where you assess the whole morass of examples and come up with a structure. We'll have the research on one side, the examples on the other, and we can try to work out the underlying principles that impact people.

Cheers,

-Alastair

PS. The gap around consistent terminology for components hasn't really come up for us. For that to apply, a site would have to use a component only on one page, and be inconsistent within that page only. As soon as you reference it from or use it on another page, the SC applies.

1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1szUxsXszXx2pRRScIr90as7fDgn7VZdxQsh2v6lZrfg/edit 

-----Original Message-----
From: James A. <A.James@soton.ac.uk> 
Sent: 14 January 2020 17:49
To: Steve Lee <stevelee@w3.org>
Cc: public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.2 status - Visual indicators

Hi Alistair

Thanks for the summary. I agree that it would be good to move this forward under Silver. Having worked with a few designers over the last couple of the months I know this is going to be a hard sell.

However on the risk of consistency of "bad" elements, we already have 2 s.c. that require consistency with limited mention of what is "good". While 3.2.4 (consistent identification)  is the closest to existing requirement for consistent visual indicators, the understanding text says

"While it is desirable and best practice always to be consistent within a single web page, 3.2.4 only addresses consistency within a set of web pages where something is repeated on more than one page in the set."

Therefore there is still a gap with requiring indicators to be consistent within a page. I’ve had this raised by users in testing, particular by those on the Autism spectrum. 

Best wishes

Abi

Sent from my iPhone

> On 14 Jan 2020, at 17:30, Steve Lee <stevelee@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> > Either way, creating a catalogue of controls is the first step, so I think that's better on the Silver timeline.
> 
> +1, though this is an important SC from a cognitive viewpoint.
> 
> Though we have to ensuret we don't prevent newer types of controls being added in future (compare with ARIA role)
> 
> > The consistency approach Abi outlined probably doesn't address that, as you could have consistently *bad* elements.
> 
> That's a good spot. Consistently bad is to be avoided :)
> 
> Steve
> 
>> On 14/01/2020 15:50, Alastair Campbell wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>> I think we are all coming to the same conclusion, which is that it is very complex and needs a lot of groundwork first.
>> It was worth someone "taking a punt" (just having a go) to see if it worked. However, it is obviously not straightforward.
>> If there is ever going to be an accessibility guideline around affordances, there is certain work needed first. Going back to the original email from me that was forwarded on, we really need a systematic listing of UI components, perhaps coming from a list like this:
>> https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopen-ui.org%2Fanalysis%2Fcomponent-matrix&amp;data=01%7C01%7Cabi.james%40abilitynet.org.uk%7Cc2f081c23b88432c2e5a08d7991781b5%7C5bd8c13f5e45437d8fc3cfc2466065f9%7C0&amp;sdata=yfgH%2FxSbkxv6fy%2FaJPXc61KA3Wq8VrgwNRs90ClAv64%3D&amp;reserved=0 (and click the Sort by to seem common components first).
>> That would help to catalogue the individual components to work out what an appropriate visual indicator actually is in each case.
>> Also, we need to tackle the 'noise' problem. A lot of the issues Abi pointed out were that non-interactive things *did* have an indicator. The consistency approach Abi outlined probably doesn't address that, as you could have consistently *bad* elements.
>> Either way, creating a catalogue of controls is the first step, so I think that's better on the Silver timeline.
>> Cheers,
>> -Alastair
>

Received on Wednesday, 15 January 2020 00:29:50 UTC