Re: Visibly hidden controls

Terrill, have a look at SC 2.1.1 Keyboard. All controls must be operable via the keyboard unless another input is required (e.g. Handwriting). Therefore, if it works with the mouse and not the keyboard, you can argue that it violates this SC. You could fix this by listening for the onfocus event and performing the same action as onmouseover once the event fires. The user tabs into the player and the controls display. Each of these controls should be operable via the keyboard and present the proper accessible name, role, and value for assistive technologies.

Nick

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 5, 2016, at 6:28 PM, Terrill Thompson <tft@uw.edu<mailto:tft@uw.edu>> wrote:

Hi All,

I'm trying to make a case in opposition of visibly hidden controls. Are there any WCAG 2.0 success criteria that controls to be visible without the user having to work hard to discover them?

Chromeless media players are a common example. By default there are no controls other than (perhaps) a large play button that's overlaid over a poster image. When the video is playing there are no controls at all. However, if a mouse user hovers over the video a control bar appears.

Depending on how it's coded the control bar might be accessible to screen reader users, and might even be visibly exposed to keyboard users once it receives focus, but from my perspective if it's not visible, keyboard users won't necessarily know they can tab to it.  The same applies to speech-to-text users. How do they know they can say "Click mute" if the media player has no visible Mute button?

Does WCAG 2.0 offer any support for my position that controls should be visible? I'm also willing to consider opposing arguments if anyone disagrees (perhaps a clean, simple interface is more or equally justifiable).

Thanks,
Terrill

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Terrill Thompson
Technology Accessibility Specialist
DO-IT, Accessible Technology Services
UW Information Technology
University of Washington
tft@uw.edu<mailto:tft@uw.edu>
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