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Re: WCAG SC 1.4.10 (Reflow) and intentionally hidden content

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From: Steve Green
Date: Sep 13, 2023 8:09PM

Thanks Glen,

The breadcrumb items are missing at 250% and all higher zoom levels. I was feeling uncharacteristically generous to our client earlier, but I agree with your viewpoint and have upgraded it to a non-conformance. I prefer to think we seek to be "accurate" rather than nit-picky or pedantic.

However, I have concerns about ignoring the author's intentions in this way. For instance, it is not uncommon for the mobile layout of a website to lack features or content that are present in the desktop layout. If this has been done to simplify the user experience, should we really insist they put all those features and content back in? It could make the accessibility better in theory, but worse in practice.

Steve



-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of glen walker
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2023 1:31 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] WCAG SC 1.4.10 (Reflow) and intentionally hidden content

It might depend on how nit-picky you want to get. Technically, 1.4.4 (which you didn't ask about) says zooming up to 200%. So anything between 100% and 200% is fair game. If something fails at exactly 173% but works at all other percentages, then it fails 1.4.4. Now, how you'd stumble upon that exact percentage without inspecting the CSS breakpoints, I don't know.

But 1.4.10 doesn't give you a range of percentages. It says if you lose content at 400%, then it fails. It doesn't say "up to 400%". So if you lose content between 200% and 399%, it technically doesn't fail 1.4.10.

Your example said 250%. That's beyond 1.4.4 so it doesn't apply, and it's not exactly 400% so 1.4.10 doesn't apply. But I'm guessing the missing breadcrumb items don't magically all appear at 400%? If the breadcrumb items are removed at 250% and remain hidden up to 400%, then I'd fail it.
The guideline doesn't say whether the "loss of information" is intentional or not.