Re: [Issue 317] Color

To take this to the next step, I just got off the phone with the Alaska
Airlines web support folks.  I gave them two two different ideas for making
the reservation pages accessible.  I suggested using two red asterisks for
fields not filled-out and one black asterisk (if they even need one for
fields filled-in).  Hopefully, my comments and concerns will get to the
people who can make a difference.  The woman I spoke with was very nice.  I
also followed-up with an e-mail.  I'll be excited to check back in a week or
so to see what happened.

On 4/21/04 2:16 PM, "John M Slatin" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

> 
> Exactly the kind of thing I had in mind, Doyle; thanks so much for providing
> theexample!
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doyle Burnett [mailto:dburnett@sesa.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 1:23 PM
> To: John M Slatin; Joe Clark; W3C Web Content
> Subject: Re: [Issue 317] Color
> 
> 
> To The Group -
> 
> There are lots of actual examples of color used in such a way as to make
> certain parts of web sites TOTALLY inaccessible.  In the example below (from
> www.alaskaair.com) starting with "Fields marked" and ending with
> Program/Number", it is unclear to a blind user and possibly a color deficient
> user which asterisk is red in color.  In this actual case, the asterisk after
> First Name is black - the asterisk after Last Name is red.  A blind or color
> deficient user who makes an error on the Alaska Airline web site will not be
> abler to correct their errors because color is used alone to describe what to
> do.  Is this the type of example we're talking about?
> 
> Example follows:
> 
> Fields marked with a red asterisk * are required.
> 
> 1) Traveler  
> This is a required field and needs to be completed.
> First Name* Last Name* 
> Mileage Program/Number
> 
> My two cents
> 
> Doyle
> 
> On 4/21/04 7:03 AM, "John M Slatin" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Joe, I still find forms where required fields are shown in red without
>> additional indication.  Even more often, error alerts may return
>> people to forms where the fields that have something wrong with them
>> are shown in red but not otherwise identified.
>> 
>> And no, I don't have a URL in front of me that I canpoint to.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
>> Behalf Of Joe Clark
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:56 AM
>> To: WAI-GL
>> Subject: Re: [Issue 317] Color
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> If the text is colored... then it by definition can be read by the
>>> User Agent or it wouldn't be able to render it red.
>> 
>> You mean there's HTML under that rendering? An amazing revelation.
>> 
>>> If the colored information is a line or something in a graphic - then
>>> it would need to be described.
>> 
>> A poor choice of words.
>> 
>>> But for a person who is colorblind -- they would generally only have
>>> standard visual browsers.    And figuring out which item is what color
>> based
>>> on color codes in the source would be beyond them.
>> 
>> and that task *almost never comes up*. I am at the extreme high end of
>> Web-surfing habits among Working Group members, as adduced elsewhere,
>> and I have found precious few sites that, in essence, say "Click the
>> red box
>> 
>> to cancel. Click the green box to buy." It borders on nonexistence.
>> 
>> WCAG WG has this annoying tic of pretending it knows the first thing
>> about colour deficiency. Nobody seems to want to do the reading. Not
>> only is it readily available, much of it for free, but I brought
>> photocopies to the Toronto f2f.
>> 
>> All we have to do is require authors not to use confusable colours in
>> confusable ways. You can put red and green right next to each other
>> and it won't necessarily mean anything special for colour-deficient
>> viewers. And no, this has *nothing* to do with greyscale display and
>> precious little to do with another shibboleth, "contrast."
>> 
>>> Now
>>> 1- we COULD require all color blind people to have a plug in that
>>> would expose colors to them.
>> 
>> Isn't this like denoting a language change by writing "The following
>> text is in Spanish"?
>> 
>>> OR
>>> 2-  we COULD require authors to have something that would provide a
>>> redundant non-color cue for any color encoded information.
>> 
>> Every site that uses colour-- and few do not-- has "colour-encoded
>> information." Besides, our other proposed guidelines would require
>> authors to use something apart from just colour to communicate
>> meaning. HTML is not incredibly well-suited to this task, but it can
>> be done. I provided examples for the Toronto f2f.
>> 
>>> Anyone see holes in the above
>> 
>> It's all hole and no donut.
>> 
>> 
>>> - or additional things to keep in mind?
>>> - or anything else on this?
>> 
>> How about "do your research"? If that seems too onerous, you could
>> simply trust the contributor who *has* done it.
>> 
>> Oh, hi, Kynn. I'm sure you'll have something to say about this, or
>> rather, about me.
> 
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 21 April 2004 18:50:44 UTC