RE: contrast for images of text

If the link has an underline then it is ok as there is a way to visually differentiate it.  But if the links are only differentiable from the surrounding text by the color, then this would trigger a 1.4.1 failure.

As you say, if someone designs a link to look just like other text for all users (e.g. sets text-decoration: none and sets the color the same as the paragraph text) then they are creating a lousy user experience for all people and not differentially impacting users with disabilities, so this isn’t a failure of 1.4.1 but this is a practice that should be avoided based on general usability principles.

AWK

From: Adam Solomon [mailto:adam.solomon2@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 8:57 AM
To: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Cc: WCAG
Subject: Re: contrast for images of text

Thanks for the response, Andrew.
What if you didn't have the proper contrast and also didn't have any other cue then this would fail 1.4.1, right?
Example: a paragraph of text where two words in the paragraph are a link, like:
"This is the time for all good men" (where the words good men are actually a link, and there is no color contrast with the surrounding text)
And what if the link had the same color as the surrounding text - that might not fail because all users are at an equal disadvantage (since there is absolutely no cue that this is a link)?

On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>> wrote:
Adam,
Color contrast is a AA issue, so it doesn’t matter if the text is in an image or is regular text, the contrast is a AA issue.

1.4.1 speaks to conveying information with color, such as “click on the green button” but you can still meet 1.4.1 with poor contrast because by not relying on color alone you’d need to include other information. For example, “click on the green button that says ‘go’!”.  It is possible to have text that is very low contrast on that button, and that is ok for 1.4.1, but would fail 1.4.3.

AWK

From: Adam Solomon [mailto:adam.solomon2@gmail.com<mailto:adam.solomon2@gmail.com>]
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 12:25 AM
To: WCAG
Subject: contrast for images of text

Would images containing text which don't have the proper contrast ratio fail at single A? I only see 1.4.3 (which is AA) mentioning the issue of contrast. I would have thought that images of text should fail at single A since the user agent has no way of overriding the css background and foreground color for these images?1.4.1 mentions the use of color to convey information and would seem a likely candidate to fail such an image, yet no mention is made there regarding images of text.
Thank you for any feedback