Re: [EXT] Focus-appearance & decorative effects

In response to your question:

  *   The question that occurs to me is: Why isn’t a background/border a decorative effect?
I think the answer is: The border helps you identify the UIC, whereas a shadow doesn’t. Maybe?
My 2¢:

  *   The shadow or glow effects are temporal — may be related to spatial and timing dimensions, could be ephemeral.
  *   In contrast, the background and border effects are rigid, fixed, permanent parts of the object.

From: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
Date: Tuesday, August 23, 2022 at 2:53 PM
To: WCAG list (w3c-wai-gl@w3.org) <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: [EXT] Focus-appearance & decorative effects
Hi folks,

During the meeting we discussed adjusting the perception interpretation paragraph to ignore ‘extraneous’ effects like shadow/glow.

I’ve done a bit of checking in WCAG 2.1 for current definition, and tried to implement Gregg’s suggestion here:
https://github.com/w3c/wcag/pull/2632/files

That updates the note to:
“What is perceived as the user interface component or sub-component (to determine enclosure or size) depends on its visual presentation. The visual presentation includes the component's visible content, border, and component-specific background. It does not include <a>decorative effects</a> emanating from the visible component such as shadows or glow effects.”

The definition is then:
<p>effects added to an element that are outside of the element and if removed do not change the ability to identify the element</p>
<p class="example">Shadows or glow effects around a user interface control.</p>

The question that occurs to me is: Why isn’t a background/border a decorative effect?
I think the answer is: The border helps you identify the UIC, whereas a shadow doesn’t. Maybe?

I’d appreciate any comments/suggestions as soon as possible please, we’re almost at the (this) finish line…

-Alastair