RE: Colour Luminosity/Contrast for form inputs/controls/components

Ø  I agree, often we use changes in background colours which are far more obvious.

I agree my suggestion is only a technique and is not the only way to solve the issue.

However, I’d like to challenge this notion that background colors are better than a focus ring.  The challenge with borders and backgrounds is that many elements have them already and the user is left guessing which background color is normal and which one indicates the focused state.  I’ve seen thick borders used on non-focused buttons as well – they look like focused buttons – but they aren’t.  You don’t know where the keyboard focus is under you start moving it around to try and figure out what is changing.    If the background only changes to indicate the focus element even if it has sufficient contrast with the text what if that background doesn’t have sufficient contrast between the normal background color of other controls.  Then you are relying on insufficient contrast between focused and non-focused elements to indicate which one is focused.  Relying simply on contrast other than something more pronounced is an issue.

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila
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SSB BART Group
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From: Alastair Campbell [mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com]
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2016 11:32 AM
To: WCAG
Subject: Re: Colour Luminosity/Contrast for form inputs/controls/components


> As a Technique, this may very well address the problem statement, however we must be careful not to be overly prescriptive of our expectations - we cannot for example 'mandate' this as a Success Criteria going forward.



I agree, often we use changes in background colours which are far more obvious.



It might be a good SC for a future set of guidelines that include user-agents though ;-)



-Alastair