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Re: What about semi-bold?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Feb 14, 2019 4:10PM

On 14/02/2019 22:39, Jared Smith wrote:
> WCAG doesn't address this. They simply set the "large text" threshold
> with "bold" text - generally defined as 700 weight in CSS. Of course
> different font faces will have different weights and boldness when
> bold, so common sense is in order.

I'll echo Jared's comment here...WCAG is surprisingly vague in this
regard. Even just taking "bold" to mean 700 weight, this is mostly
irrelevant as it does not take into account the actual typeface - even
when set to "bold", some typefaces can be extremely thin. So it's a very
handwavy requirement overall...

> I would suggest that if text has less than 4.5:1 contrast and the only
> thing that would allow it to pass WCAG is for it to be made bold and
> thus "large text", that it probably has pretty low contrast
> regardless.

And I'd agree here as well. In an audit situation, I would say that text
that is subjectively "bold-looking enough" may nominally pass the SC,
but would still strongly advise clients not to rely on this and just aim
for 4.5:1 regardless.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

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