RE: Question on Active state styling for links

Another vote for a unequivocal "yes". This is predominately a simple usability issue, although delivering optimum usability may well be an essential way to assist at least some users with cognitive impairments.
  
It seems that, the designers of modern UIs have largely ignored Jakob Nielsen's 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design ( http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/).  This was written in 1995 when most of these designer were barely born. Even though the emergence of Web services and major changes of UIs have occurred, these basic principles are still as relevant as they ever were.

The "Visibility of system status" heuristic says "The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time." This implies that active styling for links is absolutely essential.  It does seem that modern flat design environments, where you can no longer rely on a change in the drop-shadow shading around a button to confirm that it has been "pressed", are making things much worse. 

Don't get me started on how most gesture based interfaces are largely breaking Neilsen's "Recognition rather than recall" heuristic. A quick animation to tell you what gestures do the first time you use an app is not a solution (see the paragraph before the iPad screen picture in the "Visible, Intuitive Chrome" in the following article from Raluca Budiu:  http://www.nngroup.com/articles/recognition-and-recall/).

Existing usability guidelines and standards reflect Neilsen's heuristics, so W3C may only need to point to these (and to usability standards) rather than detail every single usability-based UI feature that should be implemented.
 
Best regards

Mike



-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Avila [mailto:jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com] 
Sent: 14 July 2015 13:57
To: Shawn Henry; MATF; wai-eo-editors
Cc: Kevin White
Subject: RE: Question on Active state styling for links

> As Jeanne put it: "Is there a particular value in providing alternative styling for :active links in the mobile environment? That is, when the link is touched or clicked that there is a visible change in appearance."

Yes, as I said in my first response and as Kim reaffirmed there is value in that feedback.  It's a common native app paradigm for an interactive element to change when you touch it.  For example, on my iPhone when I touch a home screen icon it gets darker letting me know that I did indeed activate it to launch the app.  This is especially helpful in situations where there is no other immediate response and you have that visual feedback to know that your touch was at least acknowledged.  As I said before in my opinion it doesn't appear to be a current WCAG failure -- but yes IMO it has value.  I think this is evidenced by the touch state properties that exist in the mobile platforms.

Jonathan

-- 
Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group 
jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: Shawn Henry [mailto:shawn@w3.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 8:21 AM
To: Jonathan Avila; MATF; wai-eo-editors
Cc: Kevin White
Subject: Re: Question on Active state styling for links

Hi Jonathan,

A bit more clarification: In <http://w3c.github.io/wai-quick-start/designing.html#ensure-that-interactive-elements-are-easy-to-identify> the item in question is "touch-screen activation" and "Touch or click on link" -- that is, providing feedback that a link *is being activated* (rather than that it is activate-able (aka affordance).

As Jeanne put it: "Is there a particular value in providing alternative styling for :active links in the mobile environment? That is, when the link is touched or clicked that there is a visible change in appearance."

Best,
~Shawn


On 7/10/2015 6:36 AM, Jonathan Avila wrote:
>> I think that is an issue here -- that is, if we keep that guidance, 
>> we might need to clarify that it's not a requirement.
>
> Shawn,  I assume the idea is that this would be WCAG advisory/best 
> practice technique bout could be a potential WCAG Mobile Extension 
> success criteria/requirement.  We need to categories the techniques 
> are compiling based on survey results from the TF.  We started this 
> process last year but did know an extension was possible at that time.
>
>>> Here is the example from EO  --the "Getting Started Tips", 
>>> specifically on "Ensure interactive elements are easy to
>>> identify":
>>> -http://w3c.github.io/wai-quick-start/designing.html#ensure-interact
>>> ive-elements-are-easy-to-identify
>
>>>
> After looking again at the link Jeanne sent -- it would appear that 
> this particular item is a separate best practice/advisory item that we 
> had also noted by the group.  Discoverability -- that is does the item 
> appear to be interactive.  That to me is a separate but related 
> concept of "does it look like something I can touch or click, etc."
>
> Jonathan
>

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Question on  Active state styling for links
Resent-Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2015 13:52:18 +0000
Resent-From: wai-eo-editors@w3.org
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2015 09:52:14 -0400
From: Jeanne Spellman <jeanne@w3.org>
To: MATF <public-mobile-a11y-tf@w3.org>
CC: Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org>, Kevin White <kevin@w3.org>, wai-eo-editors <wai-eo-editors@w3.org>

I received a question that originated with the EO working group where they would like an opinion from the Mobile Accessibility Task Force.

Is there a particular value in providing alternative styling for :active links in the mobile environment? That is, when the link is touched or clicked that there is a visible change in appearance.

An informal opinion from the WCAG WG is that WCAG doesn't address the need for alternative styling -- outside of issues of how it is styled, e.g. for color and contrast.  Is there a particular value from the mobile perspective that merits creating a technique for this?

Here is the example from EO  --the "Getting Started Tips", specifically on "Ensure interactive elements are easy to identify": - http://w3c.github.io/wai-quick-start/designing.html#ensure-interactive-elements-are-easy-to-identify



Thanks,

jeanne

Received on Tuesday, 14 July 2015 21:55:20 UTC