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Re: 1.4.3 & 2.4.7: evaluation while blind

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Sep 18, 2019 11:23AM

Steve

I see your point, and I partially agree, butnot entirely.

You an tell from the content what should potentially be a heading, a
line of text that labels or introduces a section of content.
Then you can check for the presence of either HTML markup such as
<strong> or the presence of a CSS class that includes things like bold
or centered.
If you find either, you already know that the text has visual emphasis.
If you find none, you can still note that this should be marked up as
a heading (if you check with a pair of eyes and notice that there is
no visual emphass at all, you can downgrade your recommendation to a
usability issue, but it's still valid, it's just a matter of
severity).

Yes, you should always check your findings with a sighted person
before you submit

You can identify content that looks like it should be in a table by its nature.
Tabular content is content that needs headers to be understood.

Then you look at the code and see either a presentational/layout table
(table markup with caption or headers) or a series of divs and spans,
the class names typically indicate tabular or a grid-like layout.
Same with lists, if the content appears to be a list of things, it
either has a list markup or it doesn't. If it doesn't you check the
HTML code and class names to see if you can guestimate the author
intent or visual fffect (in most cases, you can).
If it is neither marked up as a list nor preseted aa lit but its
nature is such that it benefits from being presented a list you should
still file an issue, you just have to downgrade it to a usability
recommendation.

I have not come across many places where visual formatting
significantly changes the meaning or nature of content that appears to
be logical to begin ith, and I have audited thousands of webpages.
The most common situation is content that should be hidden for all,
but is only visually hidden, you can figure that out from inspecting
the code.
Typically content that is drastically altered using visual layout
appears to be illogical when inspected with a screen reader.
I'm not sayng there are no such pages, only that they are rare.

Sure,I readily admit to the limitations of being a blind tester (or a
blind person for that matter), I have not applied to pilot school,hair
stylist school or a concealed weapons certificate class, but I think
you somewhat under-estimate the capabilities of a blind tester,
especially if you allow for some extra time to check the underlying
markup.
Your point is entirely legit and I think it's a good discussion to
have (there's no need to get unnecessarily PC about it), so no worries
on that front (if you had any).
I'll see if I can get around to writing this article over the weekend.
It's about time.


On 9/18/19, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> On 18/09/2019 13:31, Detlev Fischer wrote:
>> o I agree that a blind tester alone cannot safely
>> demonstrate conformance to 1.3.1 but often, he/she can demonstrate
>> non-conformance.
>
> Good point, well made.
>
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
> http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
> > > > >


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