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Re: FW: non-underlined link - will bolding meet contrastrequirement?

for

From: Swift, Daniel P.
Date: Jun 23, 2016 6:35AM

I'm assuming that your colleague is unable to edit the source in that particular block? Inline styling would override the styles imposed by the external stylesheet. Alternatively, adding a second stylesheet (obviously not desirable) with higher specificity for links would also override the style. To me, this seems like a more appropriate solution (if possible).

-Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2016 2:51 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] FW: non-underlined link - will bolding meet contrast requirement?

Ok, a few points of clarification (as always, feel free to correct me if I am mistaken anywhere):
There are two different WCAG SC at play here:
1.4.1 talks about being able to distinguish links from surrounding text (only when links are embedded in a block of text). Bolding the link text here suffices to distinguish the link from the surrounding text, so the 3 to 1 color contrast of link text vs. surrounding text no longer applies. As pointed out this technically passes, though it is not optimal.

1.4.3 talks about contrast ratio of text to background. Bolding the link text reduces the 4.5:1 requirement to 3:1, but it still has to be met.

Visual formatting does not affect screen readers when done via CSS.
If html text-level semantic elements such as <I>, <b>, <em> and <strong> elements are used to do this, it could technically affect screen readers. But in reality most screen readers are not affected as they do nothing with these elements, something that will hopefully change. See test page for some of these at:
http://whoseline.a11yideas.com/01_semanticTextElements.html




On 6/22/16, Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> You're statement is correct - making something bold does increase
>> it's relative visible contrast - but it does not change the contrast
>> ratio as determined by WCAG.
>
> Bold text that is 14point through 17 point is the exception to this
> statement. That is -- bold text that is 14pt or larger has a lesser
> contrast ratio than non-bold text less than 18 pt according to WCAG 2.
> It doesn't guarantee it can be read by people with low vision or color
> deficiencies though.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Jonathan Avila
> Chief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART Group
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> 703.637.8957 (Office)
>
> Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin | Blog Check
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On
> Behalf Of Jared Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2016 4:32 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] FW: non-underlined link - will bolding meet
> contrast requirement?
>
> Thad -
>
> You're statement is correct - making something bold does increase it's
> relative visible contrast - but it does not change the contrast ratio
> as determined by WCAG.
>
> Jared
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 2:02 PM, Thad C < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>> I definitely defer to Jared on this. Sorry if my statement indicating
>> that making a font bold may, in some cases, increase contrast was
>> missleading .... always learning.
>>
>> Thaddeus
>> On Jun 22, 2016 12:57 PM, "Jared Smith" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>>
>>> If the links are made bold, then they are no longer relying solely
>>> on color to differentiate them from non-link text. Now bold is
>>> generally less discernible than underline, and as Caitlin noted,
>>> bold can also be used for emphasized text. While not optimal, I
>>> believe that bold text (especially if used with sufficient contrast
>>> differences) would be sufficient to meet the WCAG requirement for
>>> not relying on color alone.
>>>
>>> Bold text does not change the contrast ratio. WCAG does have a lower
>>> foreground-to-background ratio threshold for text that is 14 point
>>> and bold or larger, but this would not be applicable to the contrast
>>> requirement (3:1 ratio) for links vs. surrounding text for
>>> non-underlined links.
>>>
>>> Jared
>>> >>> >>> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>>> >>>
>> >> >> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>> > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


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