RE: Pointer target spacing issues

Hi Folks,

Sorry for jumping in on this thread (late), but it might help to keep focused on what the issues were.

In #1311 the crux was:
" a large non-interactive area around a very small interactive component will not necessarily make it easy for users to see or activate the component. Could a minimum target size be included in SC 2.5.8 also?"

I had assumed that there would be a response along the lines of: "That is what the 2.5.5 criteria is for, but it is hard to establish what a (useful) size smaller than 44px would be, which is why this one uses spacing." (Or use some of Patrick's more eloquent comments.)

For #1312 it is either: 
- A similar response to the above, or
- There is a need to re-formulate the SC.

Depending on whether spacing can contribute to multiple targets.

Cheers,

-Alastair

https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/1311

https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/1312


-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> 
Sent: 24 August 2020 09:18
To: public-mobile-a11y-tf@w3.org
Subject: Re: Pointer target spacing issues

On 24/08/2020 03:53, Sukriti Chadha wrote:
> For mobile devices, it seems like a miss even for AA if users with 
> mobility or vision limitations aren't able to identify or reasonably 
> tap an element due to small size. It doesn't have to be 44 px, but 
> something reasonable that allows for design choices.

The "something reasonable" part is where the problem comes in. WCAG needs definitive/hard values in order to be unambiguously testable. So one way or another you need to decide on a particular size, and essentially you're then outlawing any targets that are smaller than that. There's not much nuance that you can give with WCAG SCs. For this reason the target size SC was pegged at AAA, as it will affect the layout/structure of a huge number of sites out there and make them non-compliant overnight.

> While most designers won't make the choice to have unreasonably small 
> tap targets, it seems the larger community is concerned and we might 
> want to gather more opinions in the group to see if setting a floor is 
> an option for AA.
> 
> The other option could be - like text resizing, if there is a 
> mechanism to magnify tap targets (eg. Pinch and zoom), we don't need 
> to specify a certain pixel minimum. I'll wait to respond or put in a 
> PR until more input from you and the group. Thank you.

For web content, there is pinch/zoom (unless a site tries to willfully suppress it, which would then fail the resize text SC). For native content, there's no concept of pinch/zoom as such without reliance on OS features like screen magnification - this has been a known sticking point when trying to apply WCAG to non-web/native content.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Thursday, 27 August 2020 22:28:02 UTC