Re: 1.4.12 - Text Spacing

Hi Steve,

I do understand these points, but my point is they are tangential, as the “main” way for a user to adjust a site is using their own style sheet, which obviates other design criteria—user style sheets are a hack at best, though some extensions like DarkReader do a fairly good job.

The more central issue is, does the author “block” things like zoom or other personalizations? There’s an actual problem that rests with the author, and therefore the SC should be worded in that specific way, such as:

“The author shall not set the viewport or other features is such a way as to block a user’s ability to ….”

Even so, this is more of a technology issue than an author issue. Chrome is probably farthest along in terms of personalization, though it’s a cluster… AFAIC, no browser is doing what is needed in this space.


I’m not going to go over again the fact that the SC in total is not functionally sound due to the metrics being used, etc., other than to say again that it is not in step with the technology.



Andrew Somers
Senior Color Science Researcher
Redacted for public list
 <https://www.myndex.com/perceptex/>

> On Sep 9, 2023, at 7:15 AM, Steve Green <steve.green@testpartners.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> It’s not meaningless at all, and it places some requirements on authors. For instance, if the text is in a fixed-size container, it may be truncated when the various spacing styles are applied.
>  
> I am currently testing a website in which the author wants data tables to contain only one line of text. There is no good reason for this, but it’s what they want. With normal text spacing it looks ok, but some of the text is no longer visible when the spacing styles are applied, because the table cells have the styles “overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis”.
>  
> I have seen other cases where the text is not truncated, but it flows outside its container and is displayed against a different background colour that results in insufficient colour contrast.
>  
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>  
>  
> From: Andrew Somers <andy@generaltitles.com> 
> Sent: Saturday, September 9, 2023 2:21 PM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Cc: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: 1.4.12 - Text Spacing
>  
> 
> 1.4.12 is, perhaps, not the best written SC because it really just handwaves over many common scenarios
>  
> 1.4.12 is essentially meaningless. It is not demanding that any content be set/formatted as described**, only that users be able to set content as described, at the user’s preference, yet without actually requiring any means to be provided for the user to do so.
>  
> Once again, this is a technology issue and not a content-author issue. The ability to make such adjustments belongs in the hands of the creators of user agents and browser apps. It is less than useful to recite it to authors of content.
>  
> At most, this may say “shall not use images of text content” unless there’s a verbatim accessible alt text, as covered by other SCs.
>  
>  
> Footnote
> **nor should it be, the proscribed typesetting specs are themselves meaningless as the metrics used vary widely based on font family, and WCAG2 does not provide a canonical reference font.
>  
>  
>  
> Sent from Andy’s iPhone
> 
> 
> On Sep 8, 2023, at 08:24, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk <mailto:redux@splintered.co.uk>> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 08/09/2023 15:32, Marc Haunschild wrote:
> 
> 
> SVG will fail several SCs, not just reflow, but also you cannot change text spacing, colors and other characteristics of the text…
> 
> Well you *can* in some cases (if text is still actual text, rather than vector shapes/outlines), just with greater difficulty...
> 
> But yes, by their very nature I'd personally say 1.4.12 and SVGs don't mix all that well, and I would N/A them.
> 
> (I would actually say that 1.4.12 is, perhaps, not the best written SC because it really just handwaves over many common scenarios, but it is what it is...)
> 
> P
> -- 
> Patrick H. Lauke
> 
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>