Re: 2.4.7 Focus Visible

I've been watching this conversation unfold and I just have to put in my 2 cents.

Neither of you (unless I missed it) addressed a 3rd stakeholder. We have end users, we have developers, and then we have the designers or client enforcer of the "Brand" look and feel across the site.

We are actually working on a site right now where our client (as required by her creative director) is having us implement :focus-visible precisely because the client doesn't want mouse users to experience them. And I quote: "I know I mentioned prior when clicking on the navigation or search the whole word was outline in a box. Its hard because we don’t want to take away from the beauty of the site with the clunkiness of the box. "

I'd say that this client is only moderately clinging to their visuals when we have something which requires a visible adjustment for visibility. We've definitely had clients who fought every single little visual change, even keyboard-only focus indicators. I view :focus-visible implementations as an often necessary compromise between client/design requirements and accessibility best-practice. Neither party gets the best solution, but it's better than it was.

Also, FWIW, most developers/engineers, unless specifically implementing accessibility, don't even know that WCAG has techniques. Whether or not this was an advisory technique I think would have little to no impact on the vast majority of website builds, at least in the current landscape.

Best,
Juliette
On 7/10/2023 12:05:28 PM, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:
And as I said, I'm not stopping you from proposing/submitting an
advisory technique, just cautioning that by the very nature of the
advisory it will still mean that there will be plenty of authors that
either don't even know about it, or that they decide not to apply it
even if they do know about it.
> It seems to me, however, that most visually impaired users always do
> want focus on click, so I really don't buy the nuance argument here.

The nuance here is that WCAG is not just aimed at visually impaired users...

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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