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Re: focus indicators and usability studies

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From: Sean Curtis
Date: Jun 16, 2014 3:35PM

Hi Nancy,

Eric wrote about the resetting of outline (and it's subsequent removal) in his reset.css file: http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2011/01/03/reset-revisited/

There is also http://www.outlinenone.com which was created expressly to explain this also.

If you remove it, you need to be responsible enough to add something to replace it. I'm not sure of any studies, I'd just remove it from a large site like Wikipedia using the dev tools in a browser, and then get the person who wants the outlines removed to try and navigate the site using only the keyboard.

Cheers,

Sean

> On 16 Jun 2014, at 10:04 pm, Nancy Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Let me know if I am wrong, but there was a period a few years back
> that Eric Meyers original reset.css removed the focus.
>
> Our client has a few legacy sites developed at the time. I did
> accessibility testing on these sites and indicated one of the reasons
> it didn't pass WCAG 2.0 AA because of lack of focus, I indicated the
> very low Level of Effort it would take to fix the issue. Haven't heard
> anything yet.
>
> If designers/developers were trained during this period. they may hang
> onto old ways(?)
>
> Nancy
>
>> On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 2:12 PM, < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> You folks made me laugh a lot with your responses. If I had
>> direct access to the Naysayers in question I absolutely would do
>> those things. :D
>>
>> Kevin's question in particular made me smile:
>>
>>
>>> I am curious, do they have usability studies for all design decisions that
>>> they make? Do they have any that show that removal of focus indicators *is*
>>> a good idea?
>>
>>
>> I'm having happy dreams at the moment of an imaginary world where
>> design decisions are actually made this way (which would include
>> paying attention to the usability studies about how much users
>> really hate change).
>>
>> I think Michelangelo's link from NNG is exactly what I needed --
>> now hopefully they will listen. (I don't think there's a
>> usability use case they are trying to meet with removing focus
>> indicators, although like I said I don't have direct access to
>> the people making those decisions. I think it's more that they
>> don't necessarily understand why they exist, and "usability
>> study" is more convincing language to them.
>>
>> Thank you, all!
>>
>> Deborah
>>
>> >> >> > > >