RE: Change in context?

This is not a change of context. However, there is a potential issue with regard to SC 1.3.1, which states "Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text."

In principle, this can be met by just using text to inform users of the change in the number of results. We usually recommend that an ARIA live region is used, but I don't think it's essential if the text is in a sensible place, such as just before the results.

I would have thought that a change of meaning would usually be pretty obvious. No matter how many results there are, it's still a search results page. If the list of results was replaced by something else (and I can't think of a plausible example), that would be a change of meaning.

For a small number of options, radio buttons would usually be a better choice than a combobox because they require one less click for mouse users and one less keypress for keyboard-only users. Also, the options are visible, so users can see if any are of interest without needing to interact with the website at all.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Weil <peter.weil@wisc.edu> 
Sent: 25 October 2022 13:21
To: ML W3C, WAI <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Change in context?

Would someone who is more familiar with the intentions behind WCAG definitions please clarify exactly whether “change in context” applies here.

Scenario: A page displays a Wordpress category archive of posts, likely only the most recent 10 or so.The page also includes a select element and a text input for filtering the posts by author. Upon selecting an author or entering text (there is no submit button), the page automatically changes to display (without reloading) the appropriate subset of posts based on the filtering logic.

So I’m looking at SC 3.2.2 and wondering whether it applies to this case.

The WCAG definition of “change of context” lists four bullet points, only one of which directly addresses a change in content:

4. "[changes of] content that changes the meaning of the Web page.”

https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#context-changedef


How does one determine the “meaning” of a page such as this? Applying the filters will certainly change the content, but at what point does changing the content change the meaning? It doesn’t help much when a definition doesn’t define the terms it is using to define whatever it is trying to define.

Beyond compliance with WCAG, I’m also grappling with whether it is a good idea to use a select element (it currently contains six or seven options) for applying the filter. But I guess that’s a separate discussion.

Thank you,

Peter


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Peter Weil
Web Developer
University Marketing
University of Wisconsin–Madison
608-220-3089

Received on Tuesday, 25 October 2022 12:52:17 UTC