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Re: Reconciling WCAG 2.4.7 & 1.4.11

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From: Jared Smith
Date: Sep 4, 2018 4:03PM

Peter Quale < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> But the guideline goes on to say
> "except where the appearance of the component is determined by the user
> agent and not modified by the author." I read this to say the guideline
> only applies to sites that add any focus styles.

There's been much debate about this, even in the W3C working group.
I'm not sure if it has been entirely resolved.

The primary argument revolves around the fact that this success
criterion applies to both components and states, but this exemption
only applies if "the *COMPONENT* is determined by the user agent". So
this would clearly exempt default components (such as text boxes), but
does not exempt default states (such as focus indicators). Or at least
that's the argument.

Some have even suggested that while 2.4.7 does not define what
"visible" means (very strictly, only totally invisible focus
indicators would fail), that the addition of 1.4.11 defines a contrast
threshold of 3:1 for "visible" in 2.4.7. I think this a bit of a
stretch of interpretation. Regardless, 3:1 is a good *minimal* value
to start with for such things.

As Patrick suggested, regardless of how you interpret this or what the
W3C ultimately decides these SC actually mean, it's certainly
advisable to ensure highly visible focus indicators (and components),
which inherently means they need sufficient contrast.

Jared Smith