WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: WCAG - Fail or not to - Static text tab-focusable in tables

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Jan 2, 2021 1:49PM

" Yet another reason to avoid performing "WCAG audits". I believe they're hurtful, and clients who want to only stick to it are cheaper served by any fly-by-night "a11y experts"."

I don't often disagree with you, but that's absolute nonsense. The reality is that the vast majority of organisations are only interested in legal compliance. That can mean different things in different countries. For US organisations that are covered by Section 508, it means conformance with WCAG 2.0 rather than 2.1. In the UK, all public sector organisations must meet WCAG 2.1, but there are exceptions for certain types of content.

In what possible way is it hurtful to achieve AA conformance? If you're suggesting that level AA isn't enough, then where do you draw the line and why? It's always possible to do more, so any line is arbitrary and it's a matter of diminishing returns after that.

And the idea that there are "fly-by-night a11y experts" who can competently test for WCAG conformance is wishful thinking. In the UK there are probably no more than 10 testing companies and a handful of freelancers who can conduct a WCAG audit competently. It's really, really difficult and takes many thousands of hours of study and experience. Most of the test reports I have seen from other organisations and freelancers are very poor. Of course there are some notable exceptions in this forum.

Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Mallory
Sent: 02 January 2021 13:21
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] WCAG - Fail or not to - Static text tab-focusable in tables

I suppose technically a button which can only be activated with the "r" key also passes 2.1.1.

Yet another reason to avoid performing "WCAG audits". I believe they're hurtful, and clients who want to only stick to it are cheaper served by any fly-by-night "a11y experts".

However reports should always put the "this is 110% unusable" issues under a "UX" heading or something, and not point to an SC.

cheers,
_mallory

On Fri, Jan 1, 2021, at 10:00 PM, Patrick H. Lauke wrote:
> On 01/01/2021 18:50, Abi James wrote:
>
> > I would usually apply 2.1.1 keyboard operable as, while WCAG does not define "operable", we all understand that to be that keyboard operation a site must be actually operable for the user and so match the expected keyboard patterns. Wouldn't we fail a site that overrode tab key as the keyboard operation for moving focus?
>
> No, not necessarily. 2.1.1 doesn't define normatively that the
> keyboard experience must match any "expected" patterns. Only that
> there must be a way to be able to use the keyboard.
>
> Do you fail something announced as a button, but which reacts to Enter
> but not Space, for instance? Again, this normatively passes 2.1.1.
> Yes, you can then tell the client that really they should change it to
> match the expected behaviour of a button, but to a strict reading of 2.1.1.
> And the understanding for 2.1.1 also gives no indication that the
> intention ever was to fail "unexpected"/"non-standard" keyboard operation.
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke