Work Topics

From Low Vision Accessibility Task Force

This is a whiteboard to collect ideas for issues the LVTF wishes to take up.

New Needed Features/Requirements

  1. Unconstrained Responsive Design (RD) as a key Accessibility Feature for LV
    • at least 1000%
    • ??
  2. Horizontal Scrolling
  3. Well-placed calls to action in content as it can be very easy to loose context.
    • University of Minnesota Duluth found that out in usability testing with students with low vision who have limited the field of view that restricts view to a small portion of the screen. Physical proximity of actions and consequences is especially important.
    • Derek Featherstone has evangelized this with his straw test (youtube)
  4. Minimum Color Contrast for Interactive Elements and Icons
    • ??
  5. Low vision needs better addressed by the browsers instead of individual authors
    However, authors need to provide content in a way that supports such user customization.
    1. UAAG 2.0 [Guideline 1.4 Provide Text Configuration]
    2. UAAG 2.0 [Guideline 1.7 Enable configuration of user stylesheets]
    3. UAAG 2.0 [Guideline 1.8 - Help users to orient within, and control, windows and viewports] -- specifically:
  6. Need to support restricted fields -- either because of visual field loss or simply because low vision user may be looking closely at something and has a limited field due to head placement.
    1. closeness of labels and controls
    2. Predictability of placement of labels and controls
  7. Many users do not like magnification and would prefer larger text
    1. How do we deal with larger text on screen without scroll
    2. Can text truncate?
    3. Is vertical scroll ok?
  8. Contrast is an issue for many users
    1. Generic solution often don't work
    2. Android increase contrast option is best filter option -- it adds black and white halo to all text. Mac OS option to increase contrast lightens text to the point of not being able to see it. Thus, filters are not always best solution -- individual control of text and background colors may be better than filters.
  9. Some users prefer lower resolution
    1. Scrollbars should be supported in these situations
  10. Excessive whitespace
    1. excessive whitespace can reduce the amount of content that fits on a visible screen.
  11. Single Column and Large Print
    1. The Problem
      1. Multi-column format is an accommodation for small print readers. It is used to create usable line lengths (40-75 letters). When we move to large print a single column capability becomes necessity because the small columns in a multi-column format may be long enough to fit a moderately long word.
    2. The Content Issue
      1. Many modern developers intertwine presentation with content so much that it is profoundly difficult to produce a one column version of content that preserves full meaning and functionality. This is not a problem that a user agent can disentangle reliably.
    3. Structural Requirements
      1. To achieve large print, the ability to reformat to one column is a necessity. This reformatted version needs to be semantically equal and fully functional.
    4. The Role of Responsive Web Design
      1. Responsive web design (RWD) has played an important role in defining and solving many user interface problems that are barriers to developing highly functional one column documents and applications. The lesson we get from RWD is that low capacity view ports can be designed and built to provide complete service to a general population including people who may or may not be technically sophisticated.
      2. When we think of view port capacity, normal screens with large print behave like small screens with normal print. This equates many techniques for authoring content on mobile devices to authoring content for low vision on laptops and desktops.
      3. With low capacity view ports, we need new visual idioms and formatting principles that enable access by non-technical users. For example: in a low capacity view port, using a extra large font size as a marker for visual semantics may use too much view port space to be practical. RWD has given us many user interface tools that are good for implementing highly useful low capacity view port presentations.
    5. Possible Techniques and Criteria
      1. Success Criteria: Content must be coded in way that enables a semantically equal and fully functional single column presentation.
      2. Sufficient Technique: If the author's style can be removed and the page is still fully functional, then the page can be reformatted in a one column format with font size that is only limited by the size of the view port.
      3. Advisory Technique: Font size should not be used as a visual indicator of meaning when presenting on a small capacity view port.
    6. Note:I am not so rash as to start proposing criteria and techniques before we have done considerable homework. These are just examples of directions that could result from a one column reformatting capability.
    7. LVTF, 11 Sept. 2015, W. E. Dick
  12. Pages where text is display all the way on the left margin. Github is one example where text can be on the first screen pixel of your display.
  13. pages with scrolling areas show short you can only get one or two lines of text to display at normal font size. Example is Verizon webmail client.
  14. Icons fonts that when combined with custom fonts are browser/AT combinations like ZoomText and Firefox change to squares and are unrecognizable.
  15. Fleeting messages that appear and then disappear that may appear outside the user's zoomed or magnified viewport. Currently would likely fail SC 2.2.1