Re: [EXT] Focus-appearance & decorative effects

Hi Alastair,
What I meant was that for each of those shadows there’s a gradient edge that does change, for example when zoomed. Measuring where it “stops” is subjective because it isn’t ‘fixed.’
Jennifer

From: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 5:50 AM
To: Jennifer Strickland <jstrickland@mitre.org>
Cc: WCAG list (w3c-wai-gl@w3.org) <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [EXT] Focus-appearance & decorative effects
Hi Jennifer,

If you have a look at some simple examples with & without shadow:
https://codepen.io/alastc/pen/gOeyoVe

A shadow could be as permanent as a border, at least in an authored-CSS context.

I think the underlying answer is that the note covers it, saying what it includes and doesn’t. That isn’t exhaustive, but I think aligns with a common sense reading and provides good direction.

-Alastair


From: Jennifer Strickland <jstrickland@mitre.org>
Date: Tuesday, 23 August 2022 at 20:00
To: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>, WCAG list (w3c-wai-gl@w3.org) <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: 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