Re: Headings and ARIA substitutes

One thing that is being discussed in the LVTF and the Cognitive Task Force
is the notion of customization. That is, reconfiguration of the author's
presentation. Regarding the reconfiguration of visual to audio, WCAG 2 was
very clear and clean. This was not the case for visual presentation to new
visual presentation. The above context is needed to address heading
presentation.

Size is a poor discriminant in the large print world. Must people with
reduced visual acuity (a large LV group) need far more than 200%
enlargement. 400-900% is more like it. Now if headings are bigger, there
isn't any screen space left. The need for customization is demonstrated
here. If one can see color, color is a good discriminator. If not a prefix
like . For H1, ..  For H2, ... For H3, ... . For H4 etc is useful.
Depending on the individual's functional vision differences presentations
could be implemented differently.

This is an example of differences that could be implemented in HTML / CSS
with proper structure.

Given the enormous flexibility of HTML / CSS and Javascript, and the
remarkable rendering power of all major browsers, it is surprising how
little of this capability has be applied to the needs of people who need
re-configurable visual presentation.

Regarding the semantic implication of headings: Yes navigation would be
great for non screen reader users. For WCAG 2.1 we need to focus on
content, not what UAs can do.

Wayne



On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:19 PM, John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com> wrote:

> Patrick,
>
> Thank you for re-articulating my question - yes, this is what I am
> pondering at this time, and I am hearing that you are in agreement as well
> (cool!).
>
> JF
>
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 2:12 PM, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> On 16/06/2016 19:07, John Foliot wrote:
>>
>> While I've not actually gone and looked at the emergent work of the Low
>>> Vision TF (yet), I'm curious whether or not there has been any thought
>>> towards proposing a new Success Criteria that sought to address this
>>> kind of issue? Perhaps a SC that suggested (total spitballing here...)
>>> that headings at level 4 or higher (a.k.a. h1, h2, h3) maintain a visual
>>> styling that ensures that the text is at least /XX /% larger than the
>>> body text (??). I'd be curious to hear other's thoughts on this, as I'm
>>> not sure how something like that would be received, but it sort of
>>> sounds like what Wayne is suggesting is needed. Equally, would increased
>>> size alone be the proposed requirement, or would something like
>>> increased font-weight also meet the functional need you are describing?
>>> (i.e. the heading text would remain at the same size as body/paragraph
>>> text, but have an increased weight instead. Wayne, would that also work?)
>>>
>>
>> How headings are actually marked up (whether they're marked up using
>> <h1>-<h6>, or <span role="heading">, etc) would currently already be caught
>> by a combination of 1.3.1 and 4.1.2. So I agree that the visual aspect
>> (with particular emphasis on low-vision, but probably also relating to
>> cognitive) should perhaps be a new separate SC dealing exclusively with the
>> visual representation of headings (regardless of how they're structured in
>> markup).
>>
>>
>> P
>> --
>> Patrick H. Lauke
>>
>> www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
>> http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
>> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> John Foliot
> Principal Accessibility Consultant
> Deque Systems Inc.
> john.foliot@deque.com
>
> Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion
>