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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
https://w3c.github.io/wcag/guidelines/22/
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Discrepancy between G182 and F73 of 1.4.1 Use of color #2264

Open jasonday opened 2 years ago

jasonday commented 2 years ago

G182 text in description:

Visual cues can take many forms including changes to the font style, the addition of underlines, bold, or italics, or changes to the font size.

F73 Test procedure:

Check that each link in the page that is identifiable by color (hue) is visually identifiable via some other means (e.g., underlined, bolded, italicized, sufficient difference in lightness, etc).

It feels that these should be aligned to provide clarity to 1.4.1 Use of color, by adding "sufficient difference in lightness" to G182.

JAWS-test commented 2 years ago

G182 could be expanded. But I do not think this is necessary, since the list is only exemplary. Many other examples are missing - and the example with 3:1 contrast is not optimal.

jasonday commented 2 years ago

and the example with 3:1 contrast is not optimal

How would a consumer of WCAG understand that 3:1 contrast between links and text in F73 is sufficient, but not optimal? Where is that line represented? Because there's a discrepancy between these two, it leads to a lack of clarity.

Additionally, if "sufficient difference in lightness," meets the SC that should be represented in the criteria more clearly. Due to how 1.4.1 is structured, I'd argue that most people feel that the "optimal" is actually the baseline and fail elements that may have "sufficient difference in lightness" without additional affordance, when in fact it is conforming.

bruce-usab commented 2 years ago

@jasonday — please be encouraged to propose editorial changes to F73 (or elsewhere) that would provide the clarification you are looking for.

How would a consumer of WCAG understand that 3:1 contrast between links and text in F73 is sufficient, but not optimal?

The 3:1 contrast ratio as being sufficient is described in F73 and there is a link to related technique G183 which provides more exposition. The characterization of not optimal is pretty broad, and there is no line per se. F73 mentions disabling underlining for hypertext links, and that is generally regarded in the realm of questionable design choices. I don't think there is much utility with trying to describe more examples which are not optimal.

Using sufficient differences in lightness to meet 1.4.1 is definitely a point of confusion, but I do not think there is much interest with revisiting the SC phrasing. Relying upon (only) 3:1 contrast ratio provides decent accessibility for people with low vision (the target audience for this SC) so it would be counterproductive IMHO not to ever allow G183 as sufficient.

patrickhlauke commented 2 years ago

i'll add, about the 3:1 contrast thing: the note was actually hoisted from being just an oblique side-note in F73 to actually be part of the understanding document for 1.4.1. but it seems the update fell between the cracks and never made it to the live published version of the understanding document - see https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/2269

should hopefully be fixed soon

jasonday commented 2 years ago

@patrickhlauke Thanks. I believe those additional notes within the understanding document resolves my issues in regards to clarity.