Re: Clarifying WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible

Hi Claire,

Great question, and I feel like you could reframe it to be more about people and less about meeting a success criteria. The success criteria are based on minimum guidelines.

Not all people who need a little extra help seeing what is directly interactive use assistive technology beyond perhaps wearing glasses or contact lenses. 

All sorts of people - old and young, cognitively diverse, diverse vision, diverse attention abilities - like and will benefit from well-designed highlighting of interactive elements.

And then there are all sorts of contexts, too, like bright sunlight, where focus highlights could make things easier to see.

I’d like to see evidence that "Focus states after clicking/tapping are not wanted or necessary.”

In my work on interactive simulations, diverse learners (with and without disabilities) who use mouse and touch seem to like our "interactive highlights” - a bright pink outline that appears on hover and activation - in addition to other styling that is applied to interactive elements.

In our case, we made “interactive highlights” an optional feature. Focus highlights (the same bright pink outline) appears by default for all learners who use alternative focus-based input methods - not just the keyboard and not just screen reader software. People who are completely blind likely do not care too much about focus highlights, but people with diverse forms vision really appreciate our focus highlights and our interactive highlights.

There are other interactive states besides focus that can be styled in ways that make your interactions broadly inclusive. For example, there are styling options for Link, Visited, Hover, Focus, Active states. 

I hope this is helpful information.
Taliesin

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Taliesin L. Smith
talilief@gmail.com 
taliesin.smith@colorado.edu 

Inclusive Design Research Specialist
PhET Interactive Simulations
http://phet.colorado.edu/
Department of Physics
University of Colorado, Boulder






> On May 31, 2023, at 6:19 AM, Claire Ryberg <contact@claireryberg.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I’m hoping someone can help clarify SC WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible (https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/focus-visible.html <https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/focus-visible.html>) so my team can best meet the requirement on our web platform. 
> 
> Currently on the application, a focus border is displayed on many of our interactive elements when they receive focus from a screen reader or a keyboard. This border, however, also shows up after clicking the elements when using a mouse or tapping it using a mobile device. We’re debating if the focus state when using a mouse or tapping is required to comply with WCAG guidelines for focus states.
> 
> 
> Design team: “Focus states should only be displayed for input type fields or when using assistive tooling. Focus states after clicking/tapping are not wanted or necessary.”
>  
> Development team: “After interacting with an element in any way, the element should receive focus, and therefore display a focus state.”
> 
> 
> 
> What’s your view on this behavior? Is it expected to visualize a focus border after interaction (independently of the input method) to comply with the guidelines or does it suffice to only show the focus border when specifically using assistive tooling?
> 
> To be clear: we all agree that the focus state should appear for assistive tools such as keyboard and screen readers. The debate is about if it should also appear for tools such as a mouse, touch devices etc. The interactive elements we are discussing are things like: buttons, checkboxes, tabs, custom widgets, etc…
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Claire