Re: [mediaqueries] light-level

> On Feb 10, 2016, at 10:14, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 6:39 PM, fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net> wrote:
>> # For accessibility purposes, user agents may offer manual
>> # controls allowing the user to switch between the 3 levels
>> # of independently of the ambient light level, as high
>> # contrast or low contrast styles may be more suitable for
>> # users with visual disabilities.
>> #
>> # Using this media feature for accessibility purposes
>> # overlaps a lot with the high-contrast media feature
>> # proposed by Microsoft. Can we adjust this so that it
>> # covers all use cases for both, or somehow modify them
>> # to work in an orthogonal, rather than overlapping, fashion?
>> 
>> So, I don't think we should mix up accessibility and light-level.
>> Responses to light-level can involve contrast but also background/
>> foreground swaps: e.g. I might go with a light-on-dark scheme in
>> dim lighting to avoid disrupting low-light vision, but not
>> necessarily reduce the contrast.
>> 
>> If we want to present contrast preferences, that should be
>> explicit. We can show examples where someone who is drawing
>> up a low-contrast scheme for dim lighting *also* applies that
>> for people with a contrast preference, but they shouldn't be
>> tied together.
>> 
>> So I'd remove this issue and work on addressing the need for
>> contrast or foreground/background preferences.
> 
> We don't generally care about groups which need *less* a11y help, so
> "reducing contrast" isn't really a use-case in the first place. ^_^

Actually it is. Not for people with low vision, but for people with
certain forms of dyslexia, high contrast can make the text appear
to be shining/sparkling/dancing, or just generally compound the
difficulty of differentiating certain letter shapes (p vs q) and
make things hard to read.

> On the other hand, increasing contrast for "light-level: washed" is a
> good idea, *and* it can help with a11y that wants high-contrast.  (It
> also generally means going with dark-on-light, which is better for
> low-sighted users too.)

Luckily, this works in the other direction as well. The type of corrections
that people tend to apply in response to "light-level: dim" also correlate
well with the type of adjustment people with dyslexia favor:
* reducing contrast
* reducing blue light and going for a sepia / warm colors
* light-on-dark

> So, like Florian, I favor mixing in a11y concerns to functional
> concerns when they overlap in a reasonable manner, as they increase
> the chance that they'll actually be addressed by authors.

 - Florian

Received on Wednesday, 10 February 2016 03:40:22 UTC