RE: Principle 4 - Robust (was Re: Help needed with numbering successcriteria for WCAG 2.1)

Patrick,

I’ve only found a couple of apps but no web sites that only work in one orientation and not another.
It has been my understanding that they “must work” in both orientations with no loss of functionality or no added changes other than those that a responsive design viewport size change might introduce. 

My example of added menus in portrait is from a real website as well.

Alan Smith, CSTE, CQA

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2016 3:56 PM
To: ALAN SMITH; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Cc: public-mobile-a11y-tf@w3.org
Subject: Re: Principle 4 - Robust (was Re: Help needed with numbering successcriteria for WCAG 2.1)

On 27/06/2016 20:28, ALAN SMITH wrote:
> Patrick,
>
>
>
> I don’t quite understand the difference between what you say:
>
>
>
>            “It's not about how a site/app reacts when
> orientation/viewport is changed, but rather that
>
>            it actually works in those orientations/changes.”
>
>
>
> So, if a site works in landscape but is rotated to portrait and it now
> introduces a different menu structure let’s say with hamburger menus but
> they add more menu options in portrait than they had in landscape.
>
>
>
> Is this “how it works” or “if it works”.

Giving a concrete example, which is what started the whole thing off: in 
native apps, as well as in modern browsers (using CSS, progressive web 
app manifest, etc) you can explicitly say that a site/app only works in 
portrait or landscape mode. Even if the device is tilted, the view won't 
change (and everything will simply stay as it is, without adjusting to 
the new roration). But critically, say a user relies on having their 
device always in landscape mode - it's fixed like that to their 
wheelchair, for instance - and they fire up an app / web app / website 
that declares to only work in portrait mode...then they're snookered and 
can't use it. Sure, they can (if they're able to) tilt their head 90 
degrees, but that's not really the idea of a "robust" site/app.

Beyond that there could be scenarios where even if the site does not 
actively lock the aspect ratio, it simply displays a "please rotate your 
device" on screen when the device is in the "wrong" orientation.

Currently, Mobile TF proposed a new SC under Principle 3 - 
Understandable - https://github.com/w3c/Mobile-A11y-Extension/issues/2 
but to me that's not the correct place for it. I would see it as a 
measure of "robustness" that a site/app works in different viewport 
sizes/orientations, but could also be persuaded at a stretch that this 
could fall under Principle 1 - Perceivable.

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

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