Re: 2.4.7 Focus Visible

It's not a straw man, Patrick, the compromise you talk of, accessibility on
keyboard only, is not really accessibility at all, it is lip service.

If you want an analogy, it would be like only having wheelchair ramps at
the back door to government buildings, behind the bins.

A little history about wheelchair access might be helpful. Despite years of
campaigning from the 1950s, nothing really changed in terms of wheelchair
access until the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990.

As previously discussed, forcing visually impaired users to use the
keyboard to gain visual aids to focus is not accessible. In fact, it is
worse than having no WCAG rating at all because at least there isn't the
pretence of accessibility.

> such as in Firefox where after even one
> interaction with the keyboard at any
> point on the page, subsequent mouse
> clicks also trigger :focus-
> visible/default highlighting.

I agree, The above is a good UX, but it is not standard in Chrome so is
again currently a strawman. If the above was WCAG, that one keyboard
interaction required all further mouse clicks to result in default
highlighting, it would be a much more robust option.

Although, I would then question, why the heck wouldn't all mouse events
always show focus visible because requiring a single keyboard tab to switch
on visibility seems absurdly complex and something few people would be
aware of, thus further complexing this issue unnecessarily.

It seems to me this while issue is a mess.

It's a pity that the WCAG has somewhat encouraged the mess with the current
guidelines.

M

On Monday, July 10, 2023, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> On 10/07/2023 21:25, Michael Livesey wrote:
>
>> The third
>>
>> stakeholder doesn't get to claim their premises are wheelchair friendly
without a ramp/lift, they don't get to claim they are disability friendly
having toilets on the fifth floor, why should they get to do the same for
their web sites.
>
> Now who's making strawman arguments? :focus-visible is not "no focus
indication ever", as your comparison tries to suggest.
>
> Incidentally, *because* :focus-visible taps into the browser's own
heuristics, it can take advantage of more advanced heuristics/approaches
that browsers themselves implement, such as in Firefox where after even one
interaction with the keyboard at any point on the page, subsequent mouse
clicks also trigger :focus-visible/default highlighting. Maybe not a
perfect solution for those who'd want it as a matter of course all the
time, but again - a pragmatic solution that satisfies multiple stakeholders.
>
> Anyway, peace out, I look forward to seeing a pull request for an
advisory technique...
>
> P
> --
> 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
>
>