Re: accessibility toolbar

Thank you all for your expert comments and taking the time to test the accessibility toolbar<https://farberwarecookware.com/>.

I work for a news media site so I would add another angle on the critique, that components on our site compete for real estate, in this case, the placement of a sticky bar at the bottom of a screen is currently saved for user messaging.

Thanks again.
Char Easter
UX designer, The Seattle Times

From: caroline <woodward.caroline@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2020 at 3:34 PM
To: "w3c-wai-ig@w3.org" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Re: accessibility toolbar
Resent-From: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2020 at 3:29 PM

I actually regret mentioning that I'm trying to get our teams to create one for our site because this tool is not like what im envisioning and my point was that there is a danger to designers thinking that such a tool will free them from having to include features that need and should be there in the first place. 😊


The scope of what I'm asking the team to create is small and manageable.  A switch to turn off animation and control for text size, contrast. That's it. Again not from a third party but created by the very developers who understand how things are knitted together. Nothing over the top. I hope that puts some minds at ease. 😁






On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 12:30 PM caroline <woodward.caroline@gmail.com<mailto:woodward.caroline@gmail.com>> wrote:
Steve i agree with you. I should clarify that I am not twisting arms for the use of a third-party tool. Im asking for our teams to create some switches of our own while stressing that it doesn't free us from ensuring that accessibility is baked in. 😁 I have so many reservations around third party tools and haven't seen any successfully execute to meet our needs.


On Wed, May 20, 2020, 3:04 PM Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk<mailto:steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>> wrote:
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<mailto:woodward.caroline@gmail.com>>
Sent: 20 May 2020 19:47
To: Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk<mailto:steve.green@testpartners.co.uk>>
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto: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/<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffarberwarecookware.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cceaster%40seattletimes.com%7Cedc011e122534f5486f308d7fd0e0498%7Cfc2b8476b7f0473d82fbe0a89fd99855%7C0%7C0%7C637256108966789658&sdata=zg4VQtR98EnvCOgKsJ4gqgm40%2BZboUx4IxYP2AziH0I%3D&reserved=0>

The tool is authored by, https://hikeorders.com/accessibility/main-accessibility-features/#accessibility-tools<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhikeorders.com%2Faccessibility%2Fmain-accessibility-features%2F%23accessibility-tools&data=02%7C01%7Cceaster%40seattletimes.com%7Cedc011e122534f5486f308d7fd0e0498%7Cfc2b8476b7f0473d82fbe0a89fd99855%7C0%7C0%7C637256108966794649&sdata=Xs8W34kj%2F1kF%2For8iVZM75r8BCFL8DwHRb%2BUwdP1pqQ%3D&reserved=0>

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://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fonlineada.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cceaster%40seattletimes.com%7Cedc011e122534f5486f308d7fd0e0498%7Cfc2b8476b7f0473d82fbe0a89fd99855%7C0%7C0%7C637256108966799644&sdata=ON1NmFcT%2Fce0r63ayX97SijZ9XEjnrkpbHot%2Bt8QbOk%3D&reserved=0>