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Thread: Vertical text
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From: Steve Green
Date: Mon, Jan 20 2020 12:16PM
Subject: Vertical text
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I am testing a website that is using the CSS transform property to rotate the captions for images by 90 degrees. The captions only contain 3 or 4 words, but they are quite important.
As far as I can tell, this does not violate any WCAG success criterion, but my view is that it will present a significant barrier to some people. I experience a significant cognitive load when trying to read the captions, so I am sure people with dyslexia and other cognitive impairments will find it even more difficult.
The client is only interested in WCAG compliance, so I won't be able to get this changed unless it clearly violates a success criterion.
If it's not a non-compliance now, does anyone know if it's being considered for WCAG 2.2?
Regards,
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
020 3002 4176 (direct)
0800 612 2780 (switchboard)
07957 246 276 (mobile)
020 7692 5517 (fax)
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Connect to me on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegreen2
From: glen walker
Date: Mon, Jan 20 2020 12:45PM
Subject: Re: Vertical text
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The closest I can get is 3.1 Readable but it's a stretch to apply 3.1.5 to
it since it's more concerned about the actual words rather than the
orientation. You might be able to argue that "When text requires reading
ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level" that the
ability to read vertical text requires a higher ability, but you'd have to
be pretty convincing. It's also AAA so might be a moot point if your
client is only concerned with AA.
On Mon, Jan 20, 2020 at 2:17 PM Steve Green < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> I am testing a website that is using the CSS transform property to rotate
> the captions for images by 90 degrees. The captions only contain 3 or 4
> words, but they are quite important.
>
> As far as I can tell, this does not violate any WCAG success criterion,
> but my view is that it will present a significant barrier to some people. I
> experience a significant cognitive load when trying to read the captions,
> so I am sure people with dyslexia and other cognitive impairments will find
> it even more difficult.
>
> The client is only interested in WCAG compliance, so I won't be able to
> get this changed unless it clearly violates a success criterion.
>
> If it's not a non-compliance now, does anyone know if it's being
> considered for WCAG 2.2?
>
> Regards,
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
> 020 3002 4176 (direct)
> 0800 612 2780 (switchboard)
> 07957 246 276 (mobile)
> 020 7692 5517 (fax)
> Skype: testpartners
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> www.testpartners.co.uk
>
> Connect to me on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegreen2
>
> > > > >
From: James A.
Date: Mon, Jan 20 2020 3:04PM
Subject: Re: Vertical text
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Steve,
I agree this would be a significant barriers for many people and it's also unlikely to work with many text to speech tool. Would it fail Meaningful Sequence? Personally, I would be looking very carefully at 1.4.10 Reflow and whether " without requiring scrolling in two dimensions" was met as well as 1.4.12 Text spacing. If the client is based in Europe and Australia, I would also be stressing the functional requirements of the EN 301 549 standards which underpin the laws (although this is not normative language within the standards).
So far this use case has not been discussed for any 2.2 new success criteria. The closest discussion I am aware of is within the COGA group where we have discussed requirements for ensuring text to speech read aloud content correctly and that text is presented clearly. But these requirements are heading for supporting documentations as they are difficult to make into testable success criteria.
There is plenty of research and guidance that makes reference to direction and align format of text affecting reading for people with dyslexia and cognitive difficulties. The British Dyslexia Association Style Guide (http://bit.ly/BDA-style) has always recommended left aligned text and avoid columns.
Best wishes
Abi
Dr Abi James
Principle Accessibility Consultant, AbilityNet
Visiting Research Fellow, University of Southampton
BDA New Technologies Committee
From: glen walker
Date: Mon, Jan 20 2020 5:16PM
Subject: Re: Vertical text
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> it's also unlikely to work with many text to speech tool
CSS transform is just styling. It does not affect the source of the text
so text-to-speech should not be affected.
> Would it fail Meaningful Sequence?
Again, the CSS is just styling so should not affect the reading
order/sequence. The DOM is still the same order.
That doesn't mean vertical text is not hard to read but I'm not sure I see
a strict failure.