Re: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

There is a Priority 1 problem here where someone sends a message where the
colour is critical, and you are reading it in monochrome or via  text to
speech. I got an email like that yesterday - I couldn't deduce what they
meant without colour.

Charles McCathieNevile

On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Warner ten Kate wrote:

  > > > > - checkpoint 4.1:
  
  > > Yes, it is hard to find something better. What about:
  > >
  > > - Ensure that all essential information....
  > >   [this is countered as bearing a subjective value]
  > > - ......coveyed with color other than enhancing the expressiveness
  > >   [not sure, this is proper english]
  > 
  > Now I understand better. I propose the following wording:
  > 
  >     4.1 Ensure that all information conveyed with color
  >         is also available without color,
  >         for example from context or markup. [Priority 1]
  > 
  >               When text has a purely decorative value
  >               and conveys no information other than the color
  >               itself, it is not necessary to provide that
  >               information elsewhere.
  > 
  
  I was thinking of the case where color is used to assist 
  ease of reading, similarly as bold, italics, and other fonts 
  emphasis phrases. The color is used as style of presentation.
  When I print such a colored page, I loose the color information. 
  It reduces readability, but I don't consider that loss as a 
  Priority 1 issue. It depends on how well the document has been 
  written, of course.
  
  It is good to make authors aware to use colors only for enhancing
  their message, or otherwise take care the information is 
  made available in an other way.
  
  
  Warner.
  

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Monday, 15 March 1999 06:58:56 UTC