RE: A question has come up about SC 2.2.2 & the blinking caret/cursor...

Excellent question Peter.
In the past we have seen blinking caret change blink rate to become problematic, however your point about size is very valid in my opinion.   In one instance one assistive technology seemed to cause the caret to speed up blink rate to a point where it was within the prohibited range.  This was only in one situation we’ve seen, but normally the blink rate is slow enough not to cause a problem.  Are you finding the rate to be more than 3 per second on more than rally unusual cases?




From: Peter Korn [mailto:peter.korn@oracle.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 10:18 PM
To: public-wcag2ict-tf@w3.org
Subject: A question has come up about SC 2.2.2 & the blinking caret/cursor...

Hi gang,

As we are digesting WCAG2ICT's guidance internally at Oracle, a question came up about whether and how SC 2.2.2: Pause, Stop, Hide<http://www.w3.org/TR/wcag2ict/#time-limits-pause> should be applied to the blinking text caret/cursor in a terminal window (or the actual machine console).

We presume that the blinking text caret/cursor is too small a blinking/flashing region to trigger 2.3.1 Three Flashes or Below Threshold<http://www.w3.org/TR/wcag2ict/#seizure-does-not-violate>, but that is addressing a different concern.


Should a blinking text caret/cursor be a violation of 2.2.2?  Or is what is blinking not "information"?  Or is the blinking "essential"?  Or is perhaps the blinking area small enough that it doesn't serve as a significant distraction (since it's not a problem on a console for a console screen reader or magnifier), that we might appropriately add language to Understanding to essentially exempt that behavior?


Regards,

Peter
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