RE: Visual Indicators

Hi Alastair,

If we are talking now about Silver:


  *   In order for a new SC to make it through the process is to have 2 implementations, including on the user-agent side.

I know this from the ARIA group specification release process. This was fulfilled by having user-agent representatives within the group as part of the process.

Do you have a list of user-agent representatives currently actively participating in WCAG? I think those WCAG  SCs and their feasibility to be supported “natively” are to be discussed with them. But for this, the SC specifications must be technically bulletproof and measurable without any open questions, otherwise they won’t even be taken into account. This was where the majority of work went in during the preparation for the recommendation phase in ARIA.

Best Regards
Stefan

From: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2020 6:41 PM
To: Schnabel, Stefan <stefan.schnabel@sap.com>; Niemann, Gundula <gundula.niemann@sap.com>; David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca>
Cc: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Visual Indicators

Hi Stefan,

If we continued with that approach for the SC we can deal with that.

Two points for context:

  *   We can work on what is in our charter: https://www.w3.org/2019/12/ag-charter

The only place that user-agent aspects are in scope is in the Silver work.
  *   In order for a new SC to make it through the process is to have 2 implementations, including on the user-agent side.

Cheers,

-Alastair


From: Schnabel, Stefan <stefan.schnabel@sap.com<mailto:stefan.schnabel@sap.com>>
Sent: 16 April 2020 16:54
To: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com<mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com>>; Niemann, Gundula <gundula.niemann@sap.com<mailto:gundula.niemann@sap.com>>; David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca<mailto:david100@sympatico.ca>>
Cc: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
Subject: RE: Visual Indicators

“We do not expect end users to dig into code to implement this, but it would be something for a user-agent (e.g. plugin) to take up.”

Being late to the party, I’d like to see a respective sentence to be added in the requirement to be more precise and avoiding ambiguities in interpretation.

Also, I raised the point to add this to requirements for user agents as for instance, the WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation Guide<https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-implementation/> once did and the Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.2<https://w3c.github.io/core-aam/> continues. The fact that the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG)<https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/uaag> evolvement seems to be idle since 2016 does not change this.

Regards
Stefan

From: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com<mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com>>
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2020 4:47 PM
To: Niemann, Gundula <gundula.niemann@sap.com<mailto:gundula.niemann@sap.com>>; David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca<mailto:david100@sympatico.ca>>
Cc: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
Subject: RE: Visual Indicators

Hi Gundula,

I think we are agreeing in general, but there are a couple of things to point out for future, and in relation to other SCs.


> it was clearly stated that the WCAG should not be prescriptive

We do try to avoid being prescriptive about design aspects, but we also have minimum contrast requirements. It is not a binary thing, there are exceptions.


> which contradicts to the below suggestion to determine exactly how a link or button should show their nature.

The suggestion was to treat it like text-spacing, where it is not prescriptive about the design. It asks that if the user adapts the design in a specific way, it does not become unusable.

We do not expect end users to dig into code to implement this, but it would be something for a user-agent (e.g. plugin) to take up. For example, there isn’t a plugin to specifically implement text-spacing, but there are several for changing fonts. I have a dyslexic (aimed) one installed in Chrome which changes the font, which impacts the spacing.

Anyway, we are generally agreeing, I just wanted that to be clear.

Kind regards,

-Alastair