Re: Non-text contrast research

Hi Jon and all,

+1

Kindest regards,

Laura

On Fri, May 17, 2019, 3:42 PM Jonathan Avila <jon.avila@levelaccess.com>
wrote:

> My personal thoughts from reviewing the recording are that the goal seems
> to be to get research findings that support the material design tenants
> that borders are not needed and that other subtle affordances are
> acceptable because in the end after some amount of time the user can just
> figure it out.
>
>
>
> When people with low vision look at a page we may only see small parts of
> the page and rely on other visual factors such as borders and non-word
> indicators when we can’t read the text that is in our best vision.    We do
> this to find and locate items.   Searching for a word on a page is
> extremely difficult with low vision – that’s why control+f is so
> important.  There is also visual latency where users with visual
> impairments take time to find something and may miss something they should
> otherwise be able to see – but miss it the first time.   Making the user
> rely on reading all the words or wading through little font differences to
> eventually figure out that something is actionable is not realistic for
> real people with disabilities.  This study doesn’t address the needs of
> users with cognitive and learning disabilities and seems to focus on expert
> users who are employees of Google.  There are many other aspects of this
> case such as relying on users to mouse over something, etc.  that raise
> questions about the exact methods used.  While I applaud the effort to
> conduct research – I personally feel there are to many confounding
> variables and not enough attention paid to the amount of time and other
> disabilities that make the results of limited use.
>
>
>
> On many pages I resort to setting a large focus indicator with the Stylus
> extension and tabbing around and also setting a border on actionable
> elements via hover and mousing around to try and determine actionable
> elements on a page.
>
>
>
> For me lack of borders causes the issue of not knowing the hit area for a
> target unless the mouse changes and then if there are two elements close by
> I’m not certain of which one is being targeted.  Borders provides
> confidence that I am within the hit area.   Lack of borders also is
> confusing regarding how things are related or grouped as it may be unclear
> what items are in the group or the type of action.  For example, the word
> “yes” by itself could be a yes radio button or a “yes” button.  One is
> checkable while the other performs some action that may take me somewhere
> else.  Having borders like square and circles gives me some affordance to
> know the type of response that will occur.  These are important aspects
> that must be considered.
>
>
>
> Jonathan
>
> .
>
>
>
> *From:* Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, May 17, 2019 11:39 AM
> *To:* W3C WAI ig <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> *Subject:* RE: Non-text contrast research
>
>
>
> *CAUTION:* This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not
> click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know
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>
>
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
>
>
> Hopefully people will get a chance to review the slides and/or video I
> posted from Michael Gilbert and the team at Google [1]. Michael is now on
> this email group so can join in.
>
>
>
> I thought I start the comments with what I took way from the results:
>
>
>
>    - The structure of the criteria text gives us some flexibility, where
>    it says “Visual information *required* to identify user interface
>    components and states”, if research finds that X, Y & Z other factors make
>    the contrast irrelevant in a particular scenario that can be addressed
>    fairly easily.
>
>    That is already the case for buttons where the understanding doc [2]
>    says buttons don’t require borders.
>    - The remit of the guidelines is to prevent barriers that affect
>    people with disabilities, it would be useful to have a control group or a
>    comparison with other usability testing to help work out which factors
>    impact people with low vision, compared to a general audience. (Not that it
>    is a deciding factor, but it’s part of the equation.)
>    - I fully appreciate that more examples would help, but to make that a
>    manageable task it would help to know which types of component people have
>    struggled to apply the criteria to. Presumably the examples in the
>    understanding document [2] cover some cases, which other components are
>    people concerned with?
>    - This criteria (non-text contrast) is focused on having contrast for
>    certain aspects, but it does not require particular design
>    approaches/affordances. E.g. if an input doesn’t have any border it isn’t
>    required to have a contrasting one.
>    However, lack of affordance *is an issue* for many folk (particularly
>    with cognitive impairments [3]), it would be great to re-run the study with
>    participants with cognitive impairments.
>
> I’d just note that my brain is fairly wired-up to how the guidelines work,
> so I hope people less biased by that can comment as well 😊
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
>
> -Alastair
>
>
>
> 1] Page with video and link to slides:
>
> https://alastairc.uk/tests/wcag21-examples/ntc-research-video.html
>
> NB: If the slides don’t work in your screenreader make sure the
> accessibility setting is on:
>
> https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6282736
>
>
>
> 2] Understanding doc:
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/non-text-contrast.html
>
>
>
> 3] COGA doc:
>
> https://w3c.github.io/coga/techniques/index.html#use-clear-visual-affordances
>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> www.nomensa.com / @alastc
>