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Re: Another Color Contrast question

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Oct 2, 2014 6:08PM

WCAG's requirements for contrast are for text and images of text. Text is defined as "sequence of characters that can be programmatically determined, where the sequence is expressing something in human language".

The line mentioning making icons and line drawings was inserted (as I recall it) just as a reminder that while contrast applies to text and images of text, it is worth thinking about contrast for any information that people need to consume.

AWK

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jesse Hausler
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2014 6:49 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Another Color Contrast question

I've been diving more into the area of color contrast when it comes to icons.

Under Additional Techniques (Advisory) for 1.4.3 <http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-contrast.html#visual-audio-contrast-contrast-techniques-head>;,
it says that "Making icons using simple line drawings that meet the contrast provisions for text" should be considered but are not required for conformance.

If the following are SVGs, would these be considered "simple line drawings"?

Choose the Icons link at the top of the page and scroll down a bit to the Custom Icon heading.
http://sfdc-styleguide.herokuapp.com/?id=style

They're white icons on color backgrounds. Apparently, the style is all the rage these days. You may have noticed your favorite app icon change to something similar on iOS and Android.

If they aren't considered line drawings, as SVGs (images) should I not worry about contrast for these anyways? I only have been since we're using these as buttons and I want to make sure.

On the other hand, I don't want to make our design team re-architect something if it isn't necessary for WCAG.

Thanks again,
Jesse