Re: New SC relating to notifications of content change (was Re: Some thinking around the orientation discussion)

On 10/05/2016 16:03, Sailesh Panchang wrote:
> Hello Patrickk,
> Yes, for 3.2.2 the notification of expected behavior needs to precede
> the UI component.
> Yes, the Go-button is an older paradigm.
> But UI designers need to realize the accessibility challenge they
> create. And implementing one of these two choices will change the UI
> visually but help accessibility and perhaps usability too. Surely they
> can do something else (that almost certainly may involve a UI design
> change) as long as they do not pose these challenges.

Taking the Go button case though, you're not simply asking for a visual 
change in the UI - you're asking for an interaction change. You're 
asking developers not to use a one-click/one-tap method that works well 
for the majority of their users (simply activating a checkbox/radio 
button to dynamically filter search/catalogue results) and instead 
implementing a two-step method (activating the checkbox/radio button, 
then pressing Go). It's a much harder sell.

> About search results being silently displayed on the same page after
> activating Go button : Yes the user needs a notification say with
> aria-live / alert and maybe an updated heading or table caption etc.
> If suitable, even moving focus to that content.
> This is akin to error messaging when the presence of a global error
> message above the form is not exposed to an SR.

And this brings us back to the point of this thread: WCAG does not have 
a provision/SC for this sort of thing.

> Visual proximity of  updated content may not matter to SR users but it
> does matter generally as well as for specific PWD user groups.

I didn't say that it didn't matter. I said that proximity cannot be used 
as a determining factor exactly *because* it doesn't matter for all 
users (e.g. SR users), so it would not be a suitable clause to be used 
in SC wording.

> I agree it is a challenge testing different device sizes, but  it is just that.
> Usability and accessibility are in reality platform and device size
> specific. Something may work on laptop and responsively say, on
> phones / tablets of certain sizes but not on other sized  phones and
> tablets.

I don't dispute that it's a challenge and a reality. But again, this 
comes down to having universally testable and determinable clauses in 
SCs. I would argue that having an SC which may pass on one screen size 
but fail on another - i.e. the pass/fail determination is completely 
dependent on the auditor's actual device - is a highly subjective and 
brittle basis for an SC that is guaranteed to make the SC completely 
useless and uninforceable in practice. "But your honour, when I tested 
this site on all our devices, it passed..."

> When application / content owner is made aware of this, they need to
> address it if it matters to them.

But for that to happen they need consistent and testable criteria to 
base their assessment/fixes on. Again, having something that is 
device-specific is not the way to go (see also the whole discussion on 
touch target sizes in "mm as measured on screen", or large text in 
"real-world points as measured on screen").

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Wednesday, 11 May 2016 08:19:26 UTC