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Thread: WCAG 2.2
Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)
From: Jon Brundage
Date: Wed, May 17 2023 1:26PM
Subject: WCAG 2.2
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Hello-
Any thoughts on the new success criteria in WCAG 2.2? And when do you think
it will be adopted as a standard? 2.1 came out pretty recently (in terms of
WCAG time) and I would think it would be a while until a new standard was
published.
Thanks,
Jon
From: Steve Green
Date: Wed, May 17 2023 2:09PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.2
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There have been several rewrites including one published today. If there are no more rewrites, WCAG 2.2 could become a Recommendation in three months. That said, I hope that some of the recent changes are reversed, which would delay this further.
SC 2.4.13 (Focus Appearance) was a welcome and very necessary addition in my view, so I was dismayed that it has just been moved to level AAA. I very much hope it will be moved back to AA where it belongs.
The original wording was almost incomprehensible. I wrote a test procedure that covered all the rules and exceptions, and it filled two A4 pages. Depending on the design, it potentially required 6 or more colour measurements and 4 contrast ratio calculations in addition to measuring numerous lengths and widths and calculating areas. That said, it resulted in sensible pass / fail results for all the focus indicator designs I tested.
The new wording is much simpler, but it has some unfortunate consequences. For instance, if the focus indicator is an underline, it now needs to be at least five pixels thick, whereas three pixels would previously have been sufficient. This means that the focus indicators in some design systems, such as https://design-system.service.gov.uk/, would not be conformant. I can't help wonder if this is why the SC has been dropped to level AAA. The level should be determined by user needs, not difficulty of implementation, and on that basis I can't see an argument for it not being level AA.
SC 2.4.11 (Focus Not Obscured (Minimum)) is another welcome addition at level AA. It's easy to understand and to test. It's relatively easy to fix existing websites and we have helped a client apply it to a dropdown menu already.
SC 2.5.8 (Target Size (Minimum)) is more complicated than you might expect, but it's straightforward once you get your head around it.
I haven't had more than a cursory look at the other level A and AA SCs because they will be relevant far less often, but they all look reasonable.
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
From: Lucy GRECO
Date: Wed, May 17 2023 5:24PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.2
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thanks steeve i am also disappointed that the focus visible was moved that
was not a good move sigh
Berkeley IT <https://technology.berkeley.edu/home>
Lucy Greco, Web Accessibility Evangelist
Campus IT Experience
Phone: (510) 289-6008 | Email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = |
https://dap.berkeley.edu Follow me on twitter @accessaces
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On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 1:09 PM Steve Green < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> There have been several rewrites including one published today. If there
> are no more rewrites, WCAG 2.2 could become a Recommendation in three
> months. That said, I hope that some of the recent changes are reversed,
> which would delay this further.
>
> SC 2.4.13 (Focus Appearance) was a welcome and very necessary addition in
> my view, so I was dismayed that it has just been moved to level AAA. I very
> much hope it will be moved back to AA where it belongs.
>
> The original wording was almost incomprehensible. I wrote a test procedure
> that covered all the rules and exceptions, and it filled two A4 pages.
> Depending on the design, it potentially required 6 or more colour
> measurements and 4 contrast ratio calculations in addition to measuring
> numerous lengths and widths and calculating areas. That said, it resulted
> in sensible pass / fail results for all the focus indicator designs I
> tested.
>
> The new wording is much simpler, but it has some unfortunate consequences.
> For instance, if the focus indicator is an underline, it now needs to be at
> least five pixels thick, whereas three pixels would previously have been
> sufficient. This means that the focus indicators in some design systems,
> such as https://design-system.service.gov.uk/, would not be conformant. I
> can't help wonder if this is why the SC has been dropped to level AAA. The
> level should be determined by user needs, not difficulty of implementation,
> and on that basis I can't see an argument for it not being level AA.
>
> SC 2.4.11 (Focus Not Obscured (Minimum)) is another welcome addition at
> level AA. It's easy to understand and to test. It's relatively easy to fix
> existing websites and we have helped a client apply it to a dropdown menu
> already.
>
> SC 2.5.8 (Target Size (Minimum)) is more complicated than you might
> expect, but it's straightforward once you get your head around it.
>
> I haven't had more than a cursory look at the other level A and AA SCs
> because they will be relevant far less often, but they all look reasonable.
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
>
From: Kevin Prince
Date: Tue, May 23 2023 9:09PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.2
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It seems like the need for 2.4.13 is discounted, possibly by the same people who think 2.4.7 is only worthy of AA, as it's a little complex and only affects low vision/keyboard users. It really should be a AA, and 2.4.7 an A.
Kevin Prince
From: Steve Green
Date: Tue, May 23 2023 11:26PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.2
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I totally agree on both counts. I very much hope that both decisions will be reversed. How do we make that happen?
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
From: WebAIM-Forum < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > On Behalf Of Kevin Prince
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2023 4:09 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] WCAG 2.2
It seems like the need for 2.4.13 is discounted, possibly by the same people who think 2.4.7 is only worthy of AA, as it's a little complex and only affects low vision/keyboard users. It really should be a AA, and 2.4.7 an A.
Kevin Prince
Kevin Prince
Product Accessibility & Usability Consultant
Foster Moore
A Teranet Company
E = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Christchurch
fostermoore.com<http://www.fostermoore.com/>;
From: Nick Bromley
Date: Wed, May 24 2023 12:30PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.2
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The WCAG public github (https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues) is probably the best place to raise concerns and get involved.
From reading some of the discussions there, I get the sense there's a real willingness to make it happen but there are a lot of nuances and technicalities that require time and effort to resolve, and maybe they were concerned about the time to it was taking to implement it in a watertight fashion.
- - -
Nick Bromley
Director & Accessibility Consultant
Red Kite Digital Accessibility Ltd
From: Steve Green
Date: Wed, May 24 2023 12:48PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.2
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I understand the difficulty in writing a testable success criterion. My view is that if a level AA version of Focus Appearance cannot be agreed very soon, then WCAG 2.2 should move to full Recommendation as long as there is a commitment to work on WCAG 2.3. The other success criteria are too important to delay any further, but we cannot wait 3 or 4 years for whatever Focus Appearance looks like in WCAG 3.0.
I wonder if there might be a solution along the lines of the Harding Test for flashing content in videos. There is an algorithm for calculating if flashing exceeds the permitted level, but it is too complicated to calculate manually. A number of organisations have therefore implemented online services that do the test automatically.
Steve