RE: 2.4.7 Focus Visible

Maybe I'm a bit thick, but I just don't see what problem :focus-visible is supposed to solve. And I suspect that there isn't a single developer out there who knows what it's for, either. Not that that stops them using it (incorrectly). It's a problem on just about every website we test nowadays. This has happened so rapidly I suspect it's baked (incorrectly) into some of the frameworks.

If there is a problem to be solved, I don't understand how any reliable solution can be based on leaving a behaviour to a browser's undocumented heuristics that may change at any time. By the nature of heuristics, they are likely to be different in different browsers. In what way is that better than having authors specify the behaviours?

Whatever the intent was, :focus-visible is making things tangibly worse and has made nothing better.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> 
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2023 6:23 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: 2.4.7 Focus Visible



On 10/07/2023 17:59, Michael Livesey wrote:
> There is already an advisory on 2.4.7 about mouse events, specifically 
> hover, regarding visibility and accessibility, to extend this advisory 
> to mouse click would be a natural and minimal approach. Therefore, I 
> don't think that the argument about failing this standard holds fast.

Advisory techniques have no "power" though. They go beyond what is required by WCAG, so - in my experience anyway - they're summarily ignored by authors trying to meet WCAG. Sure, we can add an advisory technique that essentially says "focus *must* be visible even after a mouse interaction", using an explicit :focus style instead of :focus-visible, but I doubt it'll result in any change.

> Your argument fails to address the actual point - that web 
> accessibility is made worse for accessible users due to the current 
> standard because it forces them to use the keyboard for navigation.

Your counterargument fails to address what I already hinted at: that browsers right here and now are already NOT showing explicit focus indications as a result of mouse interactions through their heuristics. 
That is the current status quo in browsers. :focus-visible at least taps into the same heuristics as the browser already uses. And that the most sustainable approach here is to get *browsers/user agents* to provide a setting for users to say "always show me where focus is", rather than placing the onus on authors of web content to do this.

> Your argument is instead as follows - because it is a late stage and 
> someone failed to address the actual use case of a accessible users, 
> it's now tough bananas. This is akin to someone decided steps are 
> better for wheelchair access to buildings, then on pointing out that 
> ramps/lifts are needed saying - tough bananas it's all been decided 
> folks. I don't think any reasonable person should ever accept that 
> argument, so I would be very disappointed if WCAG failed to even 
> consider doing something here.
> 
> Whilst I agree that it is a late stage, I am sure you will agree, the 
> purpose of WCAG is not to make websites less accessible to disabled 
> users. Hence the suggestion that this is made an advisory.

"Make websites less accessible" than what? As said, this is already the status quo of how browsers handle focus indication out of the box, without any author CSS, and it has been this way for over a decade now. 
As said, sure, we can have an *advisory* technique that goes above and beyond the actual requirement of 2.4.7, but I wouldn't count on that making any noticeable difference. Demanding browsers/user agents add a setting will be the action that will yield the most immediate benefit on all existing web content.


Incidentally, a related discussion from a few years back: 
https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/301


--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux https://mastodon.social/@patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

Received on Monday, 10 July 2023 17:48:18 UTC