Re: Responses to Tantek Çelik issues raised during third last call of UAAG 1.0

It was difficult for the working group to come up with a required minimum 
size for many reasons, including internationalization issues.  It can be 
assumed for western characters that are visually rendered in a box less 
than 8x8 pixels it would be difficult or impossible for most people to 
read.  If an author specified a font size that resulted in a graphical 
rendering in a box less that 8x8 pixels box accessibility requirement would 
be to increase the text size (probably needed for everyone) to one that is 
readable.  But there is no need to allow the user in this case to decrease 
the font size.

Since there is no accessibility requirement for smaller sizes, no priority 
is associated with adding this capability to a browser.

Jon


At 02:13 AM 7/9/2001 -0700, Tantek Celik wrote:
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Issue 512: Checkpoint 4.1: Range of text sizes
> > http://server.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear-lc3.html#512
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Issue summary: Is it a P1 requirement to allow configuration of very
> > small text sizes?
> >
> > Resolution:
> >
> >  - The UAWG agrees that the intent of this checkpoint is to allow the
> >  user to choose large, not small, text sizes.
> >
> >  - However, after consultation with other Working Groups, the UAWG
> >  concluded that, in light of internationalization issues (and others),
> >  the WG could not come up with a lower bound on the requirement
> >  with any confidence.
> >
> >  - Therefore, the WG resolved to leave the checkpoint as is with a
> >    note in the Techniques document:
> >
> >    <BLOCKQUOTE>
> >     The primary intention of this checkpoint is to allow users with
> >     low vision to increase the size of text. Full configurability
> >     includes the choice of (very) small text sizes that may be
> >     available, though this is not considered by the User Agent
> >     Accessibility Guidelines Working Group to be part of the priority
> >     1 requirement.  This checkpoint does not include a "lower bound"
> >     (above which text sizes would be required) because of how users'
> >     needs may vary across writing systems and hardware.
> >    </BLOCKQUOTE>
>
>I would like to point out that the reason I raised this issue is that some
>very small text sizes are illegible (e.g. anything less than 9px
>unsmoothed), and therefore, it may be preferable for a UA to set a "lower
>bound" for the purposes of avoiding "unusable" configurations.
>
>Is it a P2 (or P3) requirement to permit users to configure the size of text
>to such illegible sizes?
>
>Thanks,

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL  61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu

WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua

Received on Monday, 9 July 2001 10:43:10 UTC