Re: Emojis and ASCII art requirement for contrast too?

Whether you consider emojis to be text or graphics, I would think contrast guidelines should apply as it does to other pieces of text and or meaningful graphic. A string made of just emojis would need to be accessible, especially when done by a celebrity and meant for public consumption. And people really do send out just strings of emojis. Carrie Fisher was famous for her cryptic emoji sequences<https://twitter.com/i/events/717390523372322816>.

As for ASCII Art, the w3C WCAG 2.0 format recommends using the content in an <abbr> tag when it's one line or providing a title and skip link when it's multiple lines.. See Technique H86 Providing text alternatives for ASCII art, emoticons, and leetspeak.<https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/Techniques/html/H86> I'll note that some of the Carrie Fisher emoji tweets are using decorative letter emojis which spell out words. I'm not sure how a screen reader would handle that

Whether contrast is important would depend on how much content the ASCII Art providing (IMO). I've seen both use cases.

Hope this helps.

Elizabeth

P.S. I find the use of symbols, both for emojis and other uses, an interesting but problematic gray area. How many arrows are read out as "greater than/lesser than" or "double angle quotation"?

On Apr 17, 2023, at 2:30 PM, Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com> wrote:

WCAG 1.1 does seem to apply to emojis, emoticons, ASCII art, and leetspeak:
              (see https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Techniques/html/H86 Providing text alternatives for emojis, emoticons, ASCII art, and leetspeak)

However, my question is, does WCAG apply the contrast requirements as well?
Should a person with low-vision or color-blind also be able to perceive emojis, ASCII art, etc.?
              (see https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum “emoji” is not listed)
              text: sequence of characters that can be programmatically determined<https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum#dfn-programmatically-determined>, where the sequence is expressing something in human language<https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum#dfn-human-language>
            human language: language that is spoken, written or signed (through visual or tactile means) to communicate with humans
            image of text: text that has been rendered in a non-text form (e.g., an image) in order to achieve a particular visual effect.
                        Note: This does not include text<https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum#dfn-text> that is part of a picture that contains significant other visual content.
e.g. A person's name on a nametag in a photograph.

For example, the following string should have an alternative, but should it also have minimum contrast, or does minimum only apply to human-readable text characters?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If it was the working group’s intent to also include emojis, emoticons, etc. should this be added to an erratum?

Some references to consider that seem to interpret that emojis, emoticons, and ASCII art should have minimum contrast:

Minnesota IT Services
Say It With a Face
Accessible Communications with Emojis and Emoticons

  1.  Color Contrast: If the emoticon or emoji is used in place of text, select ones that have good color contrast.

https://mn.gov/mnit/about-mnit/accessibility/news/?id=38-436147



Ability Net
Four ways to make emojis accessible
3.Remember to test emoji visibility in both dark and light modes
              https://abilitynet.org.uk/news-blogs/four-ways-make-emojis-accessible



Regards,
Phill Jenkins
Accessibility Executive, IBM Design
Equal Access toolkit and accessibility checker at ibm.com/able/<https://www.ibm.com/able/>
linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/<https://www.linkedin.com/in/philljenkins/>
“Without accessibility, there is no diversity and inclusion”

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Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Accessibility IT Consultant/Lead Trainer
Penn State IT Accessibility
https://accessibility.psu.edu


accessibility@psu.edu (General accessibility questions)
ejp10@psu.edu
Ph: 814-865-0805