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Re: Testing Web pages with Screen Reader after Disabling CSS:

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Apr 25, 2017 8:05AM

Hi Ajeesh, in regards to current Section 508 standards -- some US Federal agencies are concerned with the ability to turn off CSS completely and as such you would want to look for things like hidden code or other markup, content appearing that shouldn't, and content that is missing such as background images and use of color that will go away.

As others have said on this list -- turning off CSS is not required for WCAG 2 A/AA conformance. WCAG does have failure techniques for using CSS background images to communicate meaning visually, reading order (meaningful sequences), use of color, etc.). So in regards to WCAG 2 -- it could be used as a tool for testing although it's a bit heavy handed and will tend to expose things that are not issues -- for example, it will unhide things that should be hidden to all users as Birkir explained.

The revised Section 508 standards include WCAG 2 A/AA by reference and as such are aligned with WCAG in this manner. So the idea of requiring or turning of CSS for testing will hopefully go away.

I did want to note that the ability for users to apply user style sheets on top of a page's style is still an important technique for personalization for users with low vision and users with some cognitive disability. Many users will likely want to change the font, color, or spacing to help them read the content. These are discussions that are occurring in regards to adapting text as a potential success criteria for future versions of WCAG.

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group 
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