Re: Text Spacing question in Dropdowns

Thanks Michael, from what I can tell we are not preventing change in Text Spacing anywhere on our site. Rather this appears to be an inherent issue in all dropdowns and how user agents apply the style sheet text parameters. Once an item in the dropdown is selected and displays on the page the text spacing changes are applied. I just wanted some additional confirmation prior to commenting that the list of options in an open dropdown are not for us to manage, but are a failure of the user agent and a workaround is not required by the WCAG.

Elizabeth A. Dunn

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Office of Digital Transformation | Digital Experience | WebNY Website Services
WebNY Accessibility and Audit


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________________________________
From: Michael Livesey <mike.j.livesey@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2026 11:53 PM
To: Dunn, Elizabeth (ITS) <Elizabeth.Dunn@its.ny.gov>
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Text Spacing question in Dropdowns

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The understanding document for text spacing states that you do not need to provide any mechanism to increase spacing, you just need to 1) not block the user from increasing spacing 2) make sure that if spacing is increased the text doesn't overflow/overlap other text.

"This SC does not dictate that authors must set all their content to the specified metrics, or provide a mechanism to do so. Rather, it specifies that an author's content has the ability to be set to those metrics without loss of content or functionality. "

On Monday, January 26, 2026, Dunn, Elizabeth (ITS) <Elizabeth.Dunn@its.ny.gov<mailto:Elizabeth.Dunn@its.ny.gov>> wrote:

I have a clarification question on WCAG SC 1.4.12 Text Spacing (Level AA). We have noted that browsers do not apply this style sheet change to text within the <select><option> dropdowns. While there are workarounds, is it accurate that the SC itself does not require a developer to implement a workaround for our site to pass since it is the role of the user agent to apply the style sheet changes to all the elements of the page?

I read this explanation on Stack Overflow and then re-read the WCAG and it appears to be true since the Intent of the SC is to ensure that our code does nothing to prevent a user from applying their own styles.

Currently I’m looking to provide our agencies with feedback to ensure our focus is on all work required to meet compliance by DOJs deadlines. During this effort, I am also working to accurately identify further improvements and document them into a Phase 2 package to be addressed as time and talent allow.

Thank you very much for any input/direction.





Elizabeth A. Dunn

She/Her/Hers
Office of Digital Transformation | Digital Experience | WebNY Website Services
WebNY Accessibility and Audit



New York State Office of Information Technology Services
50 Wolf Road, 3rd Floor, Albany, NY 12232
o: 518/485-2356 | m: 518/935-3383 | elizabeth.dunn@its.ny.gov
WebNY: 518/457-3300 | webnysupport@its.ny.gov
its.ny.gov

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