Focus visible

The far more serious issue, in all this, is not that the Focus Visible SC
has been restored to AA, but that the new SC to make focus indicators much
more strongly visible appears to have been discarded. (That was why they
moved 2.4.7 from AA to A.) In the earlier drafts of WCAG 2.2 the new SC was
numbered 2.4.11 and named Focus Visible (Enhanced) - you can still see
those earlier versions on record, to see what I mean.

The the whole history of the WCAG's lack of consideration for people with
poor eyesight (I am one, which is why I frequently rant on about this!),
just shows how little people care about these people with poor eyesight,
and I maintain is very sad. SC2.4.7 Focus Visible allowed any kind of focus
indicator no matter how faint and difficult to see. Then SC1.4.11 was added
in 2.1, ensuring focus indicators were at least 3 to 1 contrast. But they
could still be the faintest of dotted lines.

So SC2.4.11 Focus Visible (Enhanced) was introduced to, at last, require a
minimum area of high-viz pixels, to produce something people with poor
vision could actually see. And we finally, after lots of discussion over
several months, achieved something that was actually useful in solving the
problem. But that then was relegated to AAA (now there's a Level that
hardly anyone ever bothers with!) Instead, that Focus Visible (Enhanced)
was suddenly revised to give it two options, A and B, B being the original
version of the SC. But the options were either/or, and option A was worded
such that the newer option A completely nullified what option B required.
So B no longer had any force.

Option A, when you looked at it, continued to allow focus indicators to be
a thin dotted line, as still used by some web designers who don't want to
spoil the pretty looks of their page. It made Focus Visible (Enhanced)
completely toothless, and was a complete disaster and a monument to poor
draftsmanship and last minute change. So, presumably, that is why it has
now been discarded!

(NB: To avoid confusion over numbering, I should explain that the current
Focus Not Obscured SC was therefore was moved down the numbering, becoming
2.4.11 in its place - it would have been 2.1.12 if the Focus Visible
(Enhanced) had been retained. Focus Not Obscured is a more recently added
SC about an entirely different matter, to do with not obscuring focused
items under other content such as fixed page headers.)

I am glad, of course, that the WCAG looks after blind people very well. But
people with poor vision are just as important, and there are far more of
them than there are blind people! Almost all of us end up with poor or very
poor vision as we get closer to old age; we ought to be thinking about our
own futures, as well as of those people already with poor eyesight. We
should be taking it much more seriously than anyone does!