Re: Part II: Issues raised during Mac IE evaluation of UAAG 1.0

Jon Gunderson wrote:

> Some people only see in black and white (using the rods of their retina)
> so different shades of gray are hard to distinguish.  So having a highlight
> not dependent on color or sahdes of gray is important to some disabilities
> to easily recognize highlighting and important element on a page. 


In issue 484 [1], we resolved that greys count as colors.

This leaves black and white. If the highlight mechanism
relies on color, and the user can select color preferences,
then no system in the world would let you choose any color
except white and black. So the user can change the highlight
colors to black and white if desired. This is covered
by the user control checkpoint.

I can't justify *certainly not at a P1 level)
why the default styles must not rely on color if the
user can change the colors (including black and white). I thought
maybe it was that some people might not realize that they
could change the colors, but we require documentation of
such features at P1, so the requirement is at best a P3.
And, as I pointed out, this would undoubtedly mean differing
from operating environment conventions, which is not a good
thing. So making this a P1 requirement may interfere with
the usability for other users (including users with disabilities,
who might, for example, be distracted by lots of icons, boxes,
etc.).

There's no technical reason that makes the default checkpoint
hard to implement. I'm finding it very hard to justify as
a checkpoint.

  - Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2001/08/issues-20010830#484


Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Tuesday, 2 April 2002 09:33:01 UTC