Measurability in Silver

Following up on today’s conversation.

RE: Testing as Pass/Fail versus Measurability

All (or at least most) of the feedback, comments, and opposition to a “measurable” approach seem to suggest or imply that measurable means a scale – for example, a score of 1–5.

Some thoughts based on a specific example:

Success Criterion 1.4.1 Use of Color (Level A)
Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.

Technique
Situation A: If the color of particular words, backgrounds, or other content is used to indicate information:
G205: Including a text cue for colored form control labels
Test
For any content where color differences are used to convey information:
Check that the same information is available through text or character cues.

Interpretation
“…text or character cues” here is intended to describe the “visual means” as defined in the SC. So there is a simple pass / fail test that “the same information” [as color] is visible.

Hypothetical scenario
Element is a link. The information and indication of action is “this text is a link”. It is blue text within a line of black text that is not a link. It is not underlined. Links are stateful. There is only 1 of 5 states where there is no second explicit visual means. In the default state, there is color alone. In the focus, active, hover and visited states there are additional visual affordances as well as the user agent providing a pointer cursor where there is a pointing input device. There is even a selected state, and a pseudo after element that includes content of an icon that conveys the link is external.

So, “same information is available through text or character cues” is true in 4 states, but not true in 1. Does this fail? Under WCAG 1.4.1, it does. Under Silver, there may be other options. As a scale (as suggested at the beginning), this could earn a 4 of 5. However, that then requires an enumerated mark such as ‘3 or higher’ to qualify as passing. There is another option. What if the test question was “do people understand from any visual cues that this text is a link?” Then that question was answered by test participants that included 60 people with a wide spectrum of visual abilities and color deficiencies. If the result was 49 of 60 said “yes”, and 8 of 60 said “yes, if” or “yes, when” and 3 said “no”, there is clearly a new grey area or middle ground beyond simply scoring on a scale. The qualitative result is that it passed, while the quantitative result is that it scored high enough to pass if the enumerated mark or threshold was 51%. Can the qualitative result be accepted as a measurable “pass”?

Cheers,


Charles Hall // Senior UX Architect

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