Sufficient techniques seems to contradict other areas and principles.

Name: Sheena McCullagh
Email: sheena.mccullagh@blueyonder.co.uk
Affiliation: Member of the public
Document: UW
Item Number: Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.8
Part of Item: Techniques
Comment Type: technical
Summary of Issue: Sufficient techniques seems to contradict other areas and principles.
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
This actually covers Techniques and Intent, but I couldn\'t select two options on one form and didn\'t want to separate them as they are inter-related.



I am dyslexic and need specific colour combinations in order to read accurately. I am also a web writer.



Intent - second paragraph.  The last sentence contradicts the rest of the paragraph.  If the only choices we have are from a selection designated by the web writers, it negates what you are saying (accurately) in the rest of the paragraph, ie the need to be able to select our own combinations.  Recent optimal combinations for dyslexic people that I have come across - blue text on a white ground (2 people). The inverse of this (2 people).  Green text on a white ground (2 people) and black text on a green ground (1 person).



In addition, we dyslexics need extra visual clues, so changing all the text on a page to one colour and all the background to one (different) colour, which is usually what happens when selecting options from pre-set combinations, can actually make things worse.  (See also PAS 78:2006 from the British Standards Institute, section 5.6, page 16.  I have this as a Word document, so could email it to you if you wish to see it.)



Sufficient techniques - First bullet point of 1. Surely it should be to NOT specify and apply to HTML as well as CSS? (c/w G148 from the techniques document.)  NB not specifying any can cause the same problems of loss of visual clues as described above in the Intent section.



Second bullet point is not applicable to many dyslexics and therefore shouldn\'t be used as an \'or\' option to allow success at meeting this criterion.  Having this option only would still make pages inaccessible to many of us.  Most dyslexics who need specific colours need to change text colours as well as, if not in place of, background colours. For those of us that need specific text colours, changing the background and leaving the text as (usually) black, can be worse than black on white.  This also seems to contradict the second paragraph of the Intent of this success criterion.  Would it not also cause an automatic failure of 1.4.3 as the text colour would be specified, but the background be left to user selection, ie if none is selected the background is unspecified?



Bullet point three - as mentioned above, we need visual clues, even if we are being allowed to choose our specific combinations rather than picking from pre-set combinations, the problems of changing the entire page to those two colours still applies (see comments above under Intent.)



Bullet point four - this is the only one that really works, although, \'blocks of text\', as per your definition at the bottom of the page is too small an amount.  It needs to be an entire section of the page, eg the whole of the main content, the whole of the navigation, the whole of the banner.  In effect \'sections of the page\'.



A next best option is for the web designer to specify colours for things like page banners and navigation, but leave the colours of the main content of the page completely unspecified so that the page displays in the colours that the user has set in their browser/computer properties.

Proposed Change:
Intent - Paragraph two.  Remove last sentence completely, or change it to: \'For this reason we encourage authors not to specify color combinations as far as possible.  See also number 1 of sufficient techniques.\'



Sufficient techniques number 1 - Remove what is currently there and replace with:



Techniques to ensure foreground and background colors can be selected by the user, most beneficial first:



Bullet point one.  Using a technology that has commonly-available user agents that can change the foreground and background of complete page sections (General, future link)



Bullet point two.  Specifying foreground and background colors of banners, features and navigation in CSS while not specifying foreground and background colors of the main content of the page in CSS and/or HTML (future link).  This allows essential additional visual clues to be maintained. OR



Bullet point three.  Providing a multi color selection tool on the page for foreground and background colors (JavaScript, Future Link) OR



Bullet point four. Not specifying foreground and background colors in CSS and/or HTML (future link)\'



NB The current bullet point two has been deliberately omitted, for the reasons given in the Comment box.



Key terms - complete page sections.  Discrete areas of the page, eg  the whole of the main content, the whole of the navigation, the whole of the banner.

Received on Friday, 1 February 2008 01:24:11 UTC