RE: accessibility toolbar

You need to be careful when making broad statements to the effect that the tool does not help achieve WCAG conformance (I appreciate that’s not quite what you were saying). For instance, WCAG SC 2.4.7 says “Any keyboard operable user interface has a mode of operation where the keyboard focus indicator is visible.” If the website does not have a focus indicator but the toolbar has a feature that adds one, then the success criterion is met.

In principle, the same applies to other success criteria, although this is dependent on the tool itself and its method identification and invocation being accessible.

Steve


From: caroline <woodward.caroline@gmail.com>
Sent: 20 May 2020 19:47
To: Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: accessibility toolbar

I wonder if they felt that having the toolbar would free them from having things like contrast baked in?

I've been trying to twist the arms of folks to do this and some thought it meant they would be liberated from thinking about wcag and we're disappointed when I said no.

On another note that free shipping message sliding by at the top, has the odd effect of making me feel queasy.

On Wed, May 20, 2020, 2:19 PM Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk<mailto:steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>> wrote:
Also, the colour contrast of the focus indication in the toolbar violates SC 1.4.11.

There are actually some nice tools in there, like the screen ruler and screen mask, but some don’t always work properly, such as the controls for changing the text and background colours.

We and most of the rest of the accessibility community are generally opposed to tools like this, but at least it’s cheap compared with most others, so it’s not taking away much budget that could be better spent on other things.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


From: Annie Heckel <annieh@onlineada.com<mailto:annieh@onlineada.com>>
Sent: 20 May 2020 19:01
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Re: accessibility toolbar

Even without really investigating the toolbar much, I had to laugh when simply opening it caused the page to create a failure of WCAG 1.4.10: Reflow.

-Annie H.

On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 10:40 AM Char Easter <ceaster@seattletimes.com<mailto:ceaster@seattletimes.com>> wrote:
Any thoughts on this accessibility toolbar? It appears on the site, https://farberwarecookware.com/


The tool is authored by, https://hikeorders.com/accessibility/main-accessibility-features/#accessibility-tools


Thanks,

Char Easter
UX Designer at The Seattle Times
p: 206.464.2945
e: ceaster@seattletimes.com<mailto:ceaster@seattletimes.com>
m: 206.779.2427



--
Annie Heckel

Lead Accessibility Auditor
Online ADA<https://onlineada.com/>