Re: Visibly hidden controls

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments. Another point that occurs to
me is that if a control is visibly hidden, it isn't perceivable. There may
be no specific success criteria that require all actionable controls to be
visible, but despite that omission, invisible controls seem to be a
violation, in spirit anyway, of Principle 1: "Perceivable - Information and
user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can
perceive." If it's hidden by default, and difficult or impossible for users
to discover it, it's not perceivable.

Regards,
Terrill




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

On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> Michael,
> your two examples are two different issues in my opinion.
>
> > This is common on news websites and there are several where I left
> because the media started auto-playing but all I wanted was to read the
> story and I couldn't figure out how to stop the video. I'm sure there was a
> secret, but I couldn't figure it out.
>
> Those are often equally inaccessible for everyone, not just you.  No
> secret there.  Its not that you can't figure it out, there isn't a stop
> button to even discover with a mouse or a keyboard.  I've seen where there
> is a pause/play button, but it isn't keyboard accessible, so again, a basic
> keyboard accessibility problem, not really to do with visibly hidden, but
> not accessible when un-hidden.  The "auto play" annoyance is usually a
> 1.4.2 violation too: *1.4.2*
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#visual-audio-contrast-dis-audio>*Audio
> Control:* If any audio on a Web page plays automatically for more than 3
> seconds, either a *mechanism*
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-dis-audio.html#mechanismdef>is
> available to pause or stop the audio, or a mechanism is available to
> control audio volume independently from the overall system volume level.
> (Level A)
>
>
> > One of my favorite websites, my ability to navigate it went away because
> the menu vanished. I thought it was a web design bug. After a month I
> finally e-mailed customer support to find out that the menu was now hidden
> by default and I had to press something that looked like three bars to show
> it.
>
> I then asked them why they couldn't put the word "menu" next to it, and
> why it needed to be collapsed.
>
> The response I got was it needs to be collapsed to make the site look
> better on cell phones and that everyone knows the three bars opens it,
> that's the standard.
>
> That is often an issue of not connforming with the Success Creiteria
> *4.1.2* <http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#ensure-compat-rsv>*Name,
> Role, Value:* For all *user interface components*
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html#user-interface-componentdef>
> (including but not limited to: form elements, links and components
> generated by scripts), the *name*
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html#namedef>and
> *role*
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html#roledef>can
> be *programmatically determined*
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html#programmaticallydetermineddef>;
> states, properties, and values. . .
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html#programmaticallysetdef> is
> available to *user agents*
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html#useragentdef>,
> including *assistive technologies*
> <https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html#atdef>.
> (Level A)
>
> where the so called new widget "hamburger menu" is not labeld correctly
> (e.g. no name of "main menu", no state (collapsed?), and no role (its a
> menu not a button), etc.  I agree that just placing a new image with bad or
> missing alt text on a page is in no way sufficient to call that a new
> accessible widget or control.  So again, its an inaccessible menu, period,
> whether hidden or visible is not the issue.
> ___________
> Regards,
> Phill Jenkins
> pjenkins@us.ibm.com
> Senior Engineer & Accessibility Executive
> IBM Research Accessibility
> ibm.com/able <http://www.ibm.com/able>
> facebook.com/IBMAccessibility <http://www.facebook.com/IBMAccessibility>
> twitter.com/IBMAccess
> ageandability.com
>
>
>
>
> From:        "Michael A. Peters" <mpeters@domblogger.net>
> To:        w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Date:        12/05/2016 10:20 PM
> Subject:        Re: Visibly hidden controls
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
> On 12/05/2016 03:17 PM, Terrill Thompson wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> *snip*
> >
> > 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,
>
> *snip*
>
> This is common on news websites and there are several where I left
> because the media started auto-playing but all I wanted was to read the
> story and I couldn't figure out how to stop the video. I'm sure there
> was a secret, but I couldn't figure it out.
>
> One of my favorite websites, my ability to navigate it went away because
> the menu vanished. I thought it was a web design bug. After a month I
> finally e-mailed customer support to find out that the menu was now
> hidden by default and I had to press something that looked like three
> bars to show it.
>
> I then asked them why they couldn't put the word "menu" next to it, and
> why it needed to be collapsed.
>
> The response I got was it needs to be collapsed to make the site look
> better on cell phones and that everyone knows the three bars opens it,
> that's the standard.
>
> I guess because I mostly use my phone as a phone (I don't trust the
> privacy / security of the app craze) it was a "standard" I wasn't hip
> enough to know about.
>
> I still wonder why they can't put the work "menu" next to it, surely
> there's even enough room on a cell phone...
>
> Anyway yes, I agree with you, controls need to either be visible or if
> they are hidden it needs to be obvious how to access them.
>
> I weep at many of the web interfaces designed by today's "professionals".
>
>
>
>
>