WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: [EXT]Removing CSS Background image for legibility an Accessibility requirement?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Mar 15, 2022 6:17PM


On 15/03/2022 16:52, Jared Smith wrote:
>> This is essentially testing that once a user has customised their experience, things still work, which is outside of WCAG.
>
> As a counter-point, the Resize Text, Reflow, User of Color, and Text Spacing success criteria in WCAG all require certain levels of support and accessibility after end-user customizations have been applied. All of these - resizing text, zooming, overriding colors or text styles

As a side note "use of color" is not specifically about "overriding
colors" though, but about users who have trouble distinguishing colors
(so it's not really directly about users that run WHCM or similar ...
it's only a side effect that content that passes "use of color" also
stands a chance of working correctly - all other things being correct -
for users that do run forced colors).

And yes, I agree that resize text, reflow, and text spacing do indeed
skirt into user customisation areas. But their normative definition is
quite clear about that. SCs like contrast (minimum) etc however do not
normatively or informatively state anything about how content should
adapt to user customisations, and certainly not drastic ones like "if
the user overrides CSS" or "if the user has images turned off".

> Additionally, images might fail to download or the user might be in a very low bandwidth environment, so having a fall-back color ensures legible text in these situations that may be out of the user's control.

As Steve mentions, catering for situations where relied-upon
technologies fail is certainly beyond the scope of WCAG. It's of course
best practice, and benefits all users equally, but it's not something
that would lead to a fail.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke