User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

[Wayne Dick]

There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.

I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.

For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.

Wayne Dick

[Katie Haritos-Shea]

Wayne,

I get what you are saying.

I personally refer to two things related to user needs in relation to
technology, Assitive Technologies and Adaptive Techniques.

User style sheets seem to fall somewhere in between those two for me.

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I
just used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them
better than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick

[Wayne Dick]

Joe first,
Here is a modest stylesheet.

/* Simple Style Sheet to Reset Color and Font Size for Safari
*/
html, iframe, body, p, ol, li, dt, dd, dl, div, span, section,
article, header, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, footer, aside, a {
background-color: #c0b098 !important;
color: #000000 !important;
font-size: 20px !important;
line-height: 1.35em !important;
letter-spacing: 0.06em !important;
word-spacing: 0.09em !important;
}

a {
font-size: 20px !important;
color: brown !important;
}

In the modern context it is best intervene only a little.

Here I just change font-size up by 25%, spacing and

background color. This works on most responsive pages.

Most pages can take this amount of change.

Sometimes changing color disables a page for no obvious reason.

Change my colors as you need.

Lastly, sometimes non-responsive pages do well with very large

fonts. On gitHub I use 32px font and then zoom to 125%.

Katie:

My pages are assistive technology. They are

technology that enable me to read. It is only prejudice that

does not recognize this as legitimate AT.


Best to all, Wayne

Post by Katie Haritos-Shea
Wayne,
I get what you are saying.
I personally refer to two things related to user needs in relation to
technology, Assitive Technologies and Adaptive Techniques.
User style sheets seem to fall somewhere in between those two for me.

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too
bad that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I
just used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them
better than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick

[Wayne Dick]

Kazuhito,

Brilliant observation. Actually I am working on a JSON protocol to pass to
programs to forward a user's typographic needs. That could be easily taken
up by browsers. Until then user style sheets fill a gap. I use them to
work. Like reading Safaribooksonline. I use the stylesheet given in this
list so I can read technology. The sample code comes out terrible, but I
copy it and read it in Sublime where it word wraps.

The problem is that the actual tools people use to live and work are
recognized as necessary AT by the Accessibility Group. So, browsers and
operating systems just throw them away and people who need them are shut
out of basic acts like reading. It happens to me once a year.

The latest was when Windows discontinued adjustable user interfaces. It was
important AT. I had to move to the Mac. To use stylesheets for
accessibility on Chrome we used to use Stylish, but they scrape personal
data and sell it. There is a program called Stylus but I'm sticking with
Safari until they break stylesheets. They probably will eventually, because
stylesheets are not recognized as a technology that people with
disabilities depend on to maintain literacy.

Best all, Wayne

Post by Wayne Dick
Joe first,
Here is a modest stylesheet.
/* Simple Style Sheet to Reset Color and Font Size for Safari
*/
html, iframe, body, p, ol, li, dt, dd, dl, div, span, section, article, header, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, footer, aside, a {
background-color: #c0b098 !important;
color: #000000 !important;
font-size: 20px !important;
line-height: 1.35em !important;
letter-spacing: 0.06em !important;
word-spacing: 0.09em !important;
}
a {
font-size: 20px !important;
color: brown !important;
}
In the modern context it is best intervene only a little.
Here I just change font-size up by 25%, spacing and
background color. This works on most responsive pages.
Most pages can take this amount of change.
Sometimes changing color disables a page for no obvious reason.
Change my colors as you need.
Lastly, sometimes non-responsive pages do well with very large
fonts. On gitHub I use 32px font and then zoom to 125%.
My pages are assistive technology. They are
technology that enable me to read. It is only prejudice that
does not recognize this as legitimate AT.
Best to all, Wayne

Post by Katie Haritos-Shea
Wayne,
I get what you are saying.
I personally refer to two things related to user needs in relation to
technology, Assitive Technologies and Adaptive Techniques.
User style sheets seem to fall somewhere in between those two for me.

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too
bad that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of
assistive technology that is available in a technology landscape that
offers almost nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive
disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I
just used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them
better than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick

[Sean Murphy (seanmmur)]

Questions:

How many programs are available now an average user who knows nothing about style sheets can build their own style sheet and utilise in a browser?
Does the community who benefit from this technology know about it and are using it?
What part of the disability community would benefit from this other than low vision and dyslexia?
If the community does not know how to leverage this technology to make their lives easier. Then I see this as a bigger issue. If the community does know about style sheets and can easily build them to their specifications. Then isn’t it up to the community to make the vendors aware of the importance of the feature?

Just some top of mind thoughts. As awareness might be a bigger issue. Possibley why vendors of OS and browsers are discontinuing the feature. There is more than likely other reasons that I am not aware of.


From: Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 18 July 2018 11:22 AM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <***@gmail.com>
Cc: W3C WAI ig <w3c-wai-***@w3.org>
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

Kazuhito,

Brilliant observation. Actually I am working on a JSON protocol to pass to programs to forward a user's typographic needs. That could be easily taken up by browsers. Until then user style sheets fill a gap. I use them to work. Like reading Safaribooksonline. I use the stylesheet given in this list so I can read technology. The sample code comes out terrible, but I copy it and read it in Sublime where it word wraps.

The problem is that the actual tools people use to live and work are recognized as necessary AT by the Accessibility Group. So, browsers and operating systems just throw them away and people who need them are shut out of basic acts like reading. It happens to me once a year.

The latest was when Windows discontinued adjustable user interfaces. It was important AT. I had to move to the Mac. To use stylesheets for accessibility on Chrome we used to use Stylish, but they scrape personal data and sell it. There is a program called Stylus but I'm sticking with Safari until they break stylesheets. They probably will eventually, because stylesheets are not recognized as a technology that people with disabilities depend on to maintain literacy.

Best all, Wayne



On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 5:27 PM Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
Joe first,
Here is a modest stylesheet.


/* Simple Style Sheet to Reset Color and Font Size for Safari
*/
html, iframe, body, p, ol, li, dt, dd, dl, div, span, section, article, header, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, footer, aside, a {
background-color: #c0b098 !important;
color: #000000 !important;
font-size: 20px !important;
line-height: 1.35em !important;
letter-spacing: 0.06em !important;
word-spacing: 0.09em !important;
}

a {
font-size: 20px !important;
color: brown !important;
}

In the modern context it is best intervene only a little.

Here I just change font-size up by 25%, spacing and

background color. This works on most responsive pages.

Most pages can take this amount of change.

Sometimes changing color disables a page for no obvious reason.

Change my colors as you need.

Lastly, sometimes non-responsive pages do well with very large

fonts. On gitHub I use 32px font and then zoom to 125%.

Katie:

My pages are assistive technology. They are

technology that enable me to read. It is only prejudice that

does not recognize this as legitimate AT.



Best to all, Wayne




On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 5:02 PM Katie Haritos-Shea <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
Wayne,

I get what you are saying.

I personally refer to two things related to user needs in relation to technology, Assitive Technologies and Adaptive Techniques.

User style sheets seem to fall somewhere in between those two for me.

On Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 7:57 PM Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive technology.

I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.

For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.

Wayne Dick

[Chaals Nevile]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 09:51:22 +0200, Sean Murphy (seanmmur)

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
How many programs are available now an average user who knows nothing
about style sheets can build their own style sheet and utilise in a
browser?

An average user who kknows nothing about style sheets probably cannot do
this. In part because there is little tooling.

Amaya long ago implemented a basically WYSIWYG method to apply some new
style, and create a rule based on the example. This functionality is also
in MS office products - where style sheets are an extremely helpful tool
that I only ever see used by a tiny fraction of people.

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
Does the community who benefit from this technology know about it and are using it?

If you mean all of them, then I am certain the anseer is no. If you mean
some, then Wayne is an existence proof that the answer is yes. If you mean
"How much of the community who could benefit..." then I suspect the answer
is "a small fraction"...

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
What part of the disability community would benefit from this other
than low vision and dyslexia?

It is likely that people with motor difficulties of various kinds would
benefit from the ability to set sizes and spacing for interactive
components. Being able to hide distracting moving things helps a few other
groups. Handling colours effectively helps people who may or may not be in
what you meant by "low vision". changed presentaation of video
captions/subtitles helps a few different groups of users.

So I think we're probably only talking about something on the order of a
third of the population, if the features were actually friendly enough to
be usable without the kind of pain they currently require.

Just to think through the implications of the difference that
implementation details make. Many browsers include a "minimum font size"
feature. Unfortunately, when I use the Santander Bank website, increasing
font size breaks it (due to a poorly designed site - this isn't the only
issue they have) and I need to apply a work-around or turn off the feature
that is supposed to help me on all websites. There are other strategies
that would work better, if I could use a style sheet developed
specifically for that site - and it seems reasonable to share something
which increase font-size, rather than having each user make their own,
because it is somewhat tricky.

I wrot before about userJS. One of the primary use cases was for browser
manufacturers to patch websites that didn't work. There were employees at
Opera who would write this code, and it was distributed to every Opera
user. This was a job for a javascript expert, but their work helped
millions of users (because in general they worked on sites where the
problems affected millions of user at once).

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
If the community does not know how to leverage this technology to make
their lives easier. Then I see this as a bigger issue. If the community
does know about >style sheets and can easily build them to their
specifications. Then isn’t it up to the community to make the vendors
aware of the importance of the feature?

This depends on what you mean by "the community". Taking as my starting
point that it means "accessibility professionals, people with
disabilities, and web technology professionals whose responsibility
includes thinking about user experience" I think the answer is yes. If the
meaning of "the community" should not be at least that broad, I am
surprised, and would like some explanation to help understand the argument.

cheers

Chaals

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
11:22 AM
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology
Kazuhito,
Brilliant observation. Actually I am working on a JSON protocol to pass
to programs to >forward a user's typographic needs. That could be easily
taken up by browsers. Until then >user style sheets fill a gap. I use
them to work. Like reading Safaribooksonline. I use the >stylesheet
given in this list so I can read technology. The sample code comes out
terrible, but >I copy it and read it in Sublime where it word wraps.
The problem is that the actual tools people use to live and work are
recognized as necessary >AT by the Accessibility Group. So, browsers and
operating systems just throw them away and >people who need them are
shut out of basic acts like reading. It happens to me once a year.
The latest was when Windows discontinued adjustable user interfaces. It
was important AT. I >had to move to the Mac. To use stylesheets for
accessibility on Chrome we used to use >Stylish, but they scrape
personal data and sell it. There is a program called Stylus but I'm

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
sticking with Safari until they break stylesheets. They probably will

eventually, because >stylesheets are not recognized as a technology that
people with disabilities depend on to >maintain literacy.
Best all, Wayne

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
Joe first,
Here is a modest stylesheet.
/* Simple Style Sheet to Reset Color and Font Size for Safari
*/
html, iframe, body, p, ol, li, dt, dd, dl, div, span, section, article,
header, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, footer, aside, a {
background-color: #c0b098 !important;
color: #000000 !important;
font-size: 20px !important;
line-height: 1.35em !important;
letter-spacing: 0.06em !important;
word-spacing: 0.09em !important;
}
a {
font-size: 20px !important;
color: brown !important;
}
In the modern context it is best intervene only a little.Here I just
change font-size up by 25%, spacing andbackground color. This works on
most responsive pages.
Most pages can take this amount of change.Sometimes changing color
disables a page for no obvious reason.
Change my colors as you need.
Lastly, sometimes non-responsive pages do well with very large
fonts. On gitHub I use 32px font and then zoom to 125%.
My pages are assistive technology. They aretechnology that enable me to
read. It is only prejudice that
does not recognize this as legitimate AT.
Best to all, Wayne

Post by Katie Haritos-Shea
Wayne,
I get what you are saying.
I personally refer to two things related to user needs in relation to
technology, Assitive Technologies and Adaptive Techniques.
User style sheets seem to fall somewhere in between those two for me.

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of >>>>user stylesheets as a significant
technology to mitigate problems of visual interface. >>>>Actually
they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They >>>>are a way to change colors, ensure a
personalized contrast ration, control column width >>>>and many other
things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is
too bad that other >>>>browsers decided to stop supporting this
important assistive technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of
assistive technology that is >>>>available in a technology landscape
that offers almost nothing useful for most people with >>>>low vision
and cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if
I just used them >>>>correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to
use them better than you. For my needs, >>>>screen magnification
scores zero.
Wayne Dick

[Sean Murphy (seanmmur)]

Charles and all,

This is an very enlightening discussion. To answer your last question Charles. When I refer to to the community. I am referring to the general disability user base. Not people who are specialising in accessibility or UX designers. As much as they need to know about it and test/design for such technology. The general disability community or the user base as a whole need to know how to use it and ensure the technology is reliable. Based upon later posts this doesn’t seem the case.

Possible opportunity for someone to create a extendtion across all browsers.


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From: Chaals Nevile <***@yandex.ru>
Sent: Wednesday, 18 July 2018 8:14 PM
To: w3c-wai-***@w3.org
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 09:51:22 +0200, Sean Murphy (seanmmur) <***@cisco.com<mailto:***@cisco.com>> wrote:
How many programs are available now an average user who knows nothing about style sheets can build their own style sheet and utilise in a browser?

An average user who kknows nothing about style sheets probably cannot do this. In part because there is little tooling.

Amaya long ago implemented a basically WYSIWYG method to apply some new style, and create a rule based on the example. This functionality is also in MS office products - where style sheets are an extremely helpful tool that I only ever see used by a tiny fraction of people.

Does the community who benefit from this technology know about it and are using it?

If you mean all of them, then I am certain the anseer is no. If you mean some, then Wayne is an existence proof that the answer is yes. If you mean "How much of the community who could benefit..." then I suspect the answer is "a small fraction"...

What part of the disability community would benefit from this other than low vision and dyslexia?

It is likely that people with motor difficulties of various kinds would benefit from the ability to set sizes and spacing for interactive components. Being able to hide distracting moving things helps a few other groups. Handling colours effectively helps people who may or may not be in what you meant by "low vision". changed presentaation of video captions/subtitles helps a few different groups of users.

So I think we're probably only talking about something on the order of a third of the population, if the features were actually friendly enough to be usable without the kind of pain they currently require.

Just to think through the implications of the difference that implementation details make. Many browsers include a "minimum font size" feature. Unfortunately, when I use the Santander Bank website, increasing font size breaks it (due to a poorly designed site - this isn't the only issue they have) and I need to apply a work-around or turn off the feature that is supposed to help me on all websites. There are other strategies that would work better, if I could use a style sheet developed specifically for that site - and it seems reasonable to share something which increase font-size, rather than having each user make their own, because it is somewhat tricky.

I wrot before about userJS. One of the primary use cases was for browser manufacturers to patch websites that didn't work. There were employees at Opera who would write this code, and it was distributed to every Opera user. This was a job for a javascript expert, but their work helped millions of users (because in general they worked on sites where the problems affected millions of user at once).

If the community does not know how to leverage this technology to make their lives easier. Then I see this as a bigger issue. If the community does know about style sheets and can easily build them to their specifications. Then isn’t it up to the community to make the vendors aware of the importance of the feature?

This depends on what you mean by "the community". Taking as my starting point that it means "accessibility professionals, people with disabilities, and web technology professionals whose responsibility includes thinking about user experience" I think the answer is yes. If the meaning of "the community" should not be at least that broad, I am surprised, and would like some explanation to help understand the argument.

cheers

Chaals


From: Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>>
Sent: Wednesday, 18 July 2018 11:22 AM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>>
Cc: W3C WAI ig <w3c-wai-***@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-***@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

Kazuhito,

Brilliant observation. Actually I am working on a JSON protocol to pass to programs to forward a user's typographic needs. That could be easily taken up by browsers. Until then user style sheets fill a gap. I use them to work. Like reading Safaribooksonline. I use the stylesheet given in this list so I can read technology. The sample code comes out terrible, but I copy it and read it in Sublime where it word wraps.

The problem is that the actual tools people use to live and work are recognized as necessary AT by the Accessibility Group. So, browsers and operating systems just throw them away and people who need them are shut out of basic acts like reading. It happens to me once a year.

The latest was when Windows discontinued adjustable user interfaces. It was important AT. I had to move to the Mac. To use stylesheets for accessibility on Chrome we used to use Stylish, but they scrape personal data and sell it. There is a program called Stylus but I'm sticking with Safari until they break stylesheets. They probably will eventually, because stylesheets are not recognized as a technology that people with disabilities depend on to maintain literacy.

Best all, Wayne



On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 5:27 PM Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
Joe first,
Here is a modest stylesheet.


/* Simple Style Sheet to Reset Color and Font Size for Safari
*/
html, iframe, body, p, ol, li, dt, dd, dl, div, span, section, article, header, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, footer, aside, a {
background-color: #c0b098 !important;
color: #000000 !important;
font-size: 20px !important;
line-height: 1.35em !important;
letter-spacing: 0.06em !important;
word-spacing: 0.09em !important;
}

a {
font-size: 20px !important;
color: brown !important;
}

In the modern context it is best intervene only a little.

Here I just change font-size up by 25%, spacing and

background color. This works on most responsive pages.

Most pages can take this amount of change.

Sometimes changing color disables a page for no obvious reason.

Change my colors as you need.

Lastly, sometimes non-responsive pages do well with very large

fonts. On gitHub I use 32px font and then zoom to 125%.

Katie:

My pages are assistive technology. They are

technology that enable me to read. It is only prejudice that

does not recognize this as legitimate AT.



Best to all, Wayne




On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 5:02 PM Katie Haritos-Shea <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
Wayne,

I get what you are saying.

I personally refer to two things related to user needs in relation to technology, Assitive Technologies and Adaptive Techniques.

User style sheets seem to fall somewhere in between those two for me.

On Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 7:57 PM Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive technology.

I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.

For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.

Wayne Dick

[Jonathan Avila]

Ø The latest was when Windows discontinued adjustable user interfaces. It was important AT. I had to move to the Mac. To use stylesheets for accessibility on Chrome we used to use Stylish, but they scrape personal data and sell it. There is a program called Stylus but I'm sticking with Safari until they break stylesheets. They probably will eventually, because stylesheets are not recognized as a technology that people with disabilities depend on to maintain literacy.

Wayne, it’s interesting you say this as in my experience Windows 10 has more options to change text scale and other modes like high contrast mode as well as resolution while the Mac only supports changing the screen resolution and a limited increase contrast mode that doesn’t seem to be consistently support even by Mac applications like the app store. Fonts tend to be clearer on Mac especially on Chrome/Safari and the MacBook display screens are some of the easiest to see for me although PC laptop screens are getting better.

It is true in the latest Win 10 they got rid of the dialog that allow you to specify colors for titlebar, etc. (disappointing) but they do allow you to customize text, hyperlinks, disabled text, selected text, button text, and background. So for you if high contrast is painful you can turn the high contrast mode into a low contrast mode using the colors you like.` So you can use “high contrast” mode to actually make a low contrast mode with beige background and green text if you like.

To find it go to start > type high contrast settings press enter then > choose turn on high contrast > select a colored rectangle to customize contrast colors. I believe this customization is recent and is different from what was previously there.

Jonathan

From: Wayne Dick [mailto:***@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2018 9:22 PM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL
Cc: W3C WAI ig
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

Kazuhito,

Brilliant observation. Actually I am working on a JSON protocol to pass to programs to forward a user's typographic needs. That could be easily taken up by browsers. Until then user style sheets fill a gap. I use them to work. Like reading Safaribooksonline. I use the stylesheet given in this list so I can read technology. The sample code comes out terrible, but I copy it and read it in Sublime where it word wraps.

The problem is that the actual tools people use to live and work are recognized as necessary AT by the Accessibility Group. So, browsers and operating systems just throw them away and people who need them are shut out of basic acts like reading. It happens to me once a year.

The latest was when Windows discontinued adjustable user interfaces. It was important AT. I had to move to the Mac. To use stylesheets for accessibility on Chrome we used to use Stylish, but they scrape personal data and sell it. There is a program called Stylus but I'm sticking with Safari until they break stylesheets. They probably will eventually, because stylesheets are not recognized as a technology that people with disabilities depend on to maintain literacy.

Best all, Wayne



On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 5:27 PM Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
Joe first,
Here is a modest stylesheet.


/* Simple Style Sheet to Reset Color and Font Size for Safari
*/
html, iframe, body, p, ol, li, dt, dd, dl, div, span, section, article, header, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, footer, aside, a {
background-color: #c0b098 !important;
color: #000000 !important;
font-size: 20px !important;
line-height: 1.35em !important;
letter-spacing: 0.06em !important;
word-spacing: 0.09em !important;
}

a {
font-size: 20px !important;
color: brown !important;
}

In the modern context it is best intervene only a little.

Here I just change font-size up by 25%, spacing and

background color. This works on most responsive pages.

Most pages can take this amount of change.

Sometimes changing color disables a page for no obvious reason.

Change my colors as you need.

Lastly, sometimes non-responsive pages do well with very large

fonts. On gitHub I use 32px font and then zoom to 125%.

Katie:

My pages are assistive technology. They are

technology that enable me to read. It is only prejudice that

does not recognize this as legitimate AT.



Best to all, Wayne




On Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 5:02 PM Katie Haritos-Shea <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
Wayne,

I get what you are saying.

I personally refer to two things related to user needs in relation to technology, Assitive Technologies and Adaptive Techniques.

User style sheets seem to fall somewhere in between those two for me.

On Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 7:57 PM Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive technology.

I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.

For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.

Wayne Dick

[Kazuhito Kidachi]

Post by Wayne Dick
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.

I agree that user style sheets can improve accessibility and Safari is a
good browser in terms of the technology, and I’m curious how user style
sheets are widely used in general, since they require skill and knowledge
about CSS, which can be a kind of barrier for those who are not familiar
with web technologies.

I think it would be better if browsers provide GUI for editing user style
sheets so that anyone can use any web content with more accessible style.

By the way, I use Firefox with Stylus add-on
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/

Best,

Kazuhito

[Chaals Nevile]

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant >technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

They can indeed work well, but browser implementation of them was never
great, and I agree with you that it is a great shame it has got worse,
causing increased problems for many people with disabilities.

Post by Wayne Dick
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a >personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I would class them with browser extensions and other ways to customise
browser interfaces and behaviour, as clearly belonging to the set of
assistive technologies people rely on.

... Once upon a time Opera had a setup for what it called userJS - a
technology originally invented to tease a rival for deliberately breaking
compatibility, by messing with their website, but which proved very
useful. The later Firefox feature GreaseMonkey did the same thing.

It was unfortunate that during my time at Opera I never managed to get
traction for a solid sharing system (now someone would call it an app
store ;) ) for user CSS.

For general use there are key limitations on what a userCSS can do before
it starts to break things, but having site-specific CSS for particular
user needs is perfectly feasible, but helping people share relevant stuff
instead of forcing each user to do it for themselves would be a big step
forward.

If site developers could see that there were real users downloading
specific fixes to their sites, from such a sharing system, int could be
used to explain the problems to them more effectively, and hopefully to
convince them to help fix some themselves.

I have not looked closely at browser extension technology for a few years,
but my suspicion is that it would now be feasible to develop extensions
for browsers to manage userCSS, and that this could be used to support a
system for sharing more specific CSS for particular sites. Of course, from
here to there someone needs to do some development and some spreading the
word.

Post by Wayne Dick
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of
assistive technology that is available in a technology landscape >that
offers almost nothing useful for most people with low vision and
cognitive disabilities.

Agreed, but the place to get that idea accepted is in the Working Group
itself.

cheers

Chaals

[Jonathan Avila]

* I have not looked closely at browser extension technology for a few years, but my suspicion is that it would now be feasible to develop extensions for browsers to manage userCSS, and that this could be used to support a system for sharing more specific CSS for particular sites. Of course, from here to there someone needs to do some development and some spreading the word.

Many of us are using Stylus for browsers like Chrome but it only inserts the styles at the document level via a style tag. This means that in some situations even with !important we are not able to overwrite certain things do to CSS specificity rules.

Jonathan

From: Chaals Nevile <***@yandex.ru>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 2:32 AM
To: w3c-wai-***@w3.org
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 01:50:08 +0200, Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

They can indeed work well, but browser implementation of them was never great, and I agree with you that it is a great shame it has got worse, causing increased problems for many people with disabilities.

This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I would class them with browser extensions and other ways to customise browser interfaces and behaviour, as clearly belonging to the set of assistive technologies people rely on.

... Once upon a time Opera had a setup for what it called userJS - a technology originally invented to tease a rival for deliberately breaking compatibility, by messing with their website, but which proved very useful. The later Firefox feature GreaseMonkey did the same thing.

It was unfortunate that during my time at Opera I never managed to get traction for a solid sharing system (now someone would call it an app store ;) ) for user CSS.

For general use there are key limitations on what a userCSS can do before it starts to break things, but having site-specific CSS for particular user needs is perfectly feasible, but helping people share relevant stuff instead of forcing each user to do it for themselves would be a big step forward.

If site developers could see that there were real users downloading specific fixes to their sites, from such a sharing system, int could be used to explain the problems to them more effectively, and hopefully to convince them to help fix some themselves.

I have not looked closely at browser extension technology for a few years, but my suspicion is that it would now be feasible to develop extensions for browsers to manage userCSS, and that this could be used to support a system for sharing more specific CSS for particular sites. Of course, from here to there someone needs to do some development and some spreading the word.

I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.

Agreed, but the place to get that idea accepted is in the Working Group itself.

cheers

Chaals

[Wayne Dick]

Thank you list. I ran this across the general WAI list for general input. I
am preparing something for AG based on these results and some other work I
am doing.

I really appreciated all of your comments.

Best, Wayne

- I have not looked closely at browser extension technology for a few
years, but my suspicion is that it would now be feasible to develop
extensions for browsers to manage userCSS, and that this could be used to
support a system for sharing more specific CSS for particular sites. Of
course, from here to there someone needs to do some development and some
spreading the word.
Many of us are using Stylus for browsers like Chrome but it only inserts
the styles at the document level via a style tag. This means that in some
situations even with !important we are not able to overwrite certain things
do to CSS specificity rules.
Jonathan
*Sent:* Wednesday, July 18, 2018 2:32 AM
*Subject:* Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
They can indeed work well, but browser implementation of them was never
great, and I agree with you that it is a great shame it has got worse,
causing increased problems for many people with disabilities.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I would class them with browser extensions and other ways to customise
browser interfaces and behaviour, as clearly belonging to the set of
assistive technologies people rely on.
... Once upon a time Opera had a setup for what it called userJS - a
technology originally invented to tease a rival for deliberately breaking
compatibility, by messing with their website, but which proved very useful.
The later Firefox feature GreaseMonkey did the same thing.
It was unfortunate that during my time at Opera I never managed to get
traction for a solid sharing system (now someone would call it an app store
;) ) for user CSS.
For general use there are key limitations on what a userCSS can do before
it starts to break things, but having site-specific CSS for particular user
needs is perfectly feasible, but helping people share relevant stuff
instead of forcing each user to do it for themselves would be a big step
forward.
If site developers could see that there were real users downloading
specific fixes to their sites, from such a sharing system, int could be
used to explain the problems to them more effectively, and hopefully to
convince them to help fix some themselves.
I have not looked closely at browser extension technology for a few years,
but my suspicion is that it would now be feasible to develop extensions for
browsers to manage userCSS, and that this could be used to support a system
for sharing more specific CSS for particular sites. Of course, from here to
there someone needs to do some development and some spreading the word.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.
Agreed, but the place to get that idea accepted is in the Working Group itself.
cheers
Chaals
--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at https://yandex.com
Using Opera's long-abandoned mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Is there really still nothing better?

[Tobias Bengfort]

I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.

In order to get this working reliably we would have to convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.

tobias

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick

[Chaals Nevile]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort

Post by Tobias Bengfort
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.

We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is possibly
easier than it might seem.

cheers

Post by Tobias Bengfort
tobias

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive
disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick

[J. Albert Bowden]

"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against."

selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but that
shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to be
scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles that
are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style at a higher
specificity.

we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in selectivity;
offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the dom, present page
elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces of
this, etc.

i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for
cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance;
however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many people
know about bookmarklets.

maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y expert.

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort <
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable

Post by Tobias Bengfort
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.

We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is possibly
easier than it might seem.
cheers
tobias

Post by Tobias Bengfort

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive
disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick

--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at https://yandex.com
Using Opera's long-abandoned mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Is there really still nothing better?

[Sean Murphy (seanmmur)]

Correct me if I am in error. But I have tried booklets on some pages and received alerts blocking them.

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SR ENGINEER.SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
***@cisco.com<mailto:***@cisco.com>
Tel: [phone]










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From: J. Albert Bowden <***@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, 19 July 2018 10:22 AM
To: Chaals Nevile <***@yandex.ru>
Cc: W3C WAI ig <w3c-wai-***@w3.org>
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against."

selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but that shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to be scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles that are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style at a higher specificity.

we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in selectivity; offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the dom, present page elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces of this, etc.

i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance; however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many people know about bookmarklets.

maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y expert.



On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 7:01 PM, Chaals Nevile <***@yandex.ru<mailto:***@yandex.ru>> wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort <***@posteo.de<mailto:***@posteo.de>> wrote:
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.

In order to get this working reliably we would have to convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.

We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is possibly easier than it might seem.

cheers
tobias


On 18/07/18 01:50, Wayne Dick wrote:
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.

I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.

For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.

Wayne Dick
--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at https://yandex.com
Using Opera's long-abandoned mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Is there really still nothing better?

[Tobias Bengfort]

Post by Sean Murphy (seanmmur)
Correct me if I am in error. But I have tried booklets on some pages
and received alerts blocking them.

Yes, bookmarklets will no longer work once Content Security Policies
(CSPs) are wide-spread. This is an important security feature. You will
have to use browser extensions instead.

tobias

[Wayne Dick]

I will now focus on users with low vision. It is a good example because
the scope is simpler than cognitive disabilities, but the solution space is
similar.

The current model of AT does not work for people who have low vision and
cognitive disabilities. We need a personalized user interface. The access
we need is like the access given by stylesheets when they work. We need
selector level personalization.

It is very clear that this cannot be provided by an AT that runs outside of
the browser. That would be an extreme breach of security. Right now CSS or
browser extensions are the only way to achieve this result. There are
difficulties with both of these, but for now that is all there is.

Ultimately there needs to be a way to pass style preferences to browsers in
a way that uses can get their visual style changes. Until then, CSS and
extensions are it.

Don't discount a tool that serves subject matter experts with disabilities.
We do need to work. Ordinary users with low vision cannot write CSS. Most
people who are blind don't write screen readers but they need them. (The
NVDA staff is a cool exception)

The bottom line is that CSS is one of the only languages that can safely
mitigate the accessibility needs of the small group people with low vision
who are IT professionals. It keeps many us working.

It is extremely scary to live in a world where a basic method of
accommodation can be taken away without notice, because nobody understands
the extreme value of these tool to our lives. CSS is one. Configurable UI
tools are another.

Jon's comment on Windows 10 really illustrates the problem. For Jon the
change was good. For me it made my 13 inch laptop impractical to use.
Personalization is really necessary, but mainstream users think of it as a
nice feature, not a necessity. That is why people with fully sight and no
print disability can talk so casually about using CSS as an AT. CSS is not
ideal, but for many it's infinitely better than nothing, or screen
magnification.

User stylesheets written to modify visual access are Assistive
Technology. "hardware
and/or software that acts as a user agent
<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#useragentdef>, or along with a mainstream
user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users with
disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user agents" WCAG
2.0

Best Wayne

Post by J. Albert Bowden
"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against."
selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but that
shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to be
scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles that
are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style at a higher
specificity.
we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in selectivity;
offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the dom, present page
elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces of
this, etc.
i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for
cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance;
however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many people
know about bookmarklets.
maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y expert.

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort <
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable

Post by Tobias Bengfort
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.

We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is possibly
easier than it might seem.
cheers
tobias

Post by Tobias Bengfort

Post by Wayne Dick
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick

--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at https://yandex.com
Using Opera's long-abandoned mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Is there really still nothing better?

--
J. Albert Bowden II
https://bowdenweb.com/ <http://bowdenweb.com/>

[Patrick H. Lauke]

Is there anything actually actionable you're hoping to get from this
discussion? It's interesting, but I'm missing the context, or a concrete
"and for this reason I think we should do X".

P

I will now focus on users with low vision.  It is a good example because
the scope is simpler than cognitive disabilities, but the solution space
is similar.
The current model of AT does not work for people who have low vision and
cognitive disabilities. We need a personalized user interface. The
access we need is like the access given by stylesheets when they work.
We need selector level personalization.
It is very clear that this cannot be provided by an AT that runs outside
of the browser. That would be an extreme breach of security. Right now
CSS or browser extensions are the only way to achieve this result. There
are difficulties with both of these, but for now that is all there is.
Ultimately there needs to be a way to pass style preferences to browsers
in a way that uses can get their visual style changes. Until then, CSS
and extensions are it.
Don't discount a tool that serves subject matter experts with
disabilities. We do need to work. Ordinary users with low vision cannot
write CSS. Most people who are blind don't write screen readers but they
need them. (The NVDA staff is a cool exception)
The bottom line is that CSS is one of the only languages that can safely
mitigate the accessibility needs of the small group people with low
vision who are IT professionals. It keeps many us working.
It is extremely scary to live in a world where a basic method of
accommodation can be taken away without notice, because nobody
understands the extreme value of these tool to our lives. CSS is one.
Configurable UI tools are another.
Jon's comment on Windows 10 really illustrates the problem. For Jon the
change was good. For me it made my 13 inch laptop impractical to use.
Personalization is really necessary, but mainstream users think of it as
a nice feature, not a necessity. That is why people with fully sight and
no print disability can talk so casually about using CSS as an AT. CSS
is not ideal, but for many it's infinitely better than nothing, or
screen magnification.
User stylesheets written to modify visual access are Assistive
Technology. "hardware and/or software that acts as auser agent
<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#useragentdef>, or along with a mainstream
user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users
with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user
agents"  WCAG 2.0
Best Wayne
On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 5:28 PM J. Albert Bowden
"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against."
selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but
that shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to
be scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles
that are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style
at a higher specificity.
we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in
selectivity; offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the
dom, present page elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces
of this, etc.
i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for
cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance;
however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many
people know about bookmarklets.
maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y expert.
On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there
are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is
basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to
convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce
breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.
We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is
possibly easier than it might seem.
cheers
tobias
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility
experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant
technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they
work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left
out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure
a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user
stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this
important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a
form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape
that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and
cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen
magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how
to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick
--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile    find more at https://yandex.com
Using Opera's long-abandoned mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Is there really still nothing better?
--
J. Albert Bowden II
https://bowdenweb.com/ <http://bowdenweb.com/>

[Wayne Dick]

Nothing actionable today. That's why I am on the IG. I will formulate
something actionable soon.

I am gathering up ideas.


Best Wayne

Post by Patrick H. Lauke
Is there anything actually actionable you're hoping to get from this
discussion? It's interesting, but I'm missing the context, or a concrete
"and for this reason I think we should do X".
P

Post by Wayne Dick
I will now focus on users with low vision. It is a good example because
the scope is simpler than cognitive disabilities, but the solution space
is similar.
The current model of AT does not work for people who have low vision and
cognitive disabilities. We need a personalized user interface. The
access we need is like the access given by stylesheets when they work.
We need selector level personalization.
It is very clear that this cannot be provided by an AT that runs outside
of the browser. That would be an extreme breach of security. Right now
CSS or browser extensions are the only way to achieve this result. There
are difficulties with both of these, but for now that is all there is.
Ultimately there needs to be a way to pass style preferences to browsers
in a way that uses can get their visual style changes. Until then, CSS
and extensions are it.
Don't discount a tool that serves subject matter experts with
disabilities. We do need to work. Ordinary users with low vision cannot
write CSS. Most people who are blind don't write screen readers but they
need them. (The NVDA staff is a cool exception)
The bottom line is that CSS is one of the only languages that can safely
mitigate the accessibility needs of the small group people with low
vision who are IT professionals. It keeps many us working.
It is extremely scary to live in a world where a basic method of
accommodation can be taken away without notice, because nobody
understands the extreme value of these tool to our lives. CSS is one.
Configurable UI tools are another.
Jon's comment on Windows 10 really illustrates the problem. For Jon the
change was good. For me it made my 13 inch laptop impractical to use.
Personalization is really necessary, but mainstream users think of it as
a nice feature, not a necessity. That is why people with fully sight and
no print disability can talk so casually about using CSS as an AT. CSS
is not ideal, but for many it's infinitely better than nothing, or
screen magnification.
User stylesheets written to modify visual access are Assistive
Technology. "hardware and/or software that acts as auser agent
<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#useragentdef>, or along with a

mainstream

Post by Wayne Dick
user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users
with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user
agents" WCAG 2.0
Best Wayne
On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 5:28 PM J. Albert Bowden
"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no

stable

Post by Wayne Dick
CSS-APIs that you could work against."
selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but
that shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to
be scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles
that are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style
at a higher specificity.
we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in
selectivity; offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the
dom, present page elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces
of this, etc.
i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for
cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance;
however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many
people know about bookmarklets.
maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y

expert.

Post by Wayne Dick
On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there
are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is
basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to
convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce
breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.
We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is
possibly easier than it might seem.
cheers
tobias
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility
experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant
technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they
work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left
out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure
a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other

things.

Post by Wayne Dick
I use Safari because the browser will host user
stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this
important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a
form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape
that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and
cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen
magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how
to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick
--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at

https://yandex.com
http://www.opera.com/mail/

Post by Wayne Dick
Is there really still nothing better?
--
J. Albert Bowden II
https://bowdenweb.com/ <http://bowdenweb.com/>

--
Patrick H. Lauke
www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com

[Wilco Fiers]

Hey Wayne,
I really appreciate this e-mail thread. Going from its past work, AG hasn't
really seen custom stylesheets as assistive technologies. For example:
Color contrast is easily solved with a good custom style sheet, provided
the content author didn't do a few things that can get in the way of the
custom stylesheet. But rather than prohibit that, WCAG went the route where
there's some base level every site needs to meet, and whoever needs more is
just out of luck when it comes to those sites where custom styles don't
work.

The opposite was true for the WCAG 2.1 rule about word spacing (which is
where I can see your influence at work Wayne!), where the requirement
wasn't to have some minimum amount of word / line / paragraph spacing, but
rather to build the UI in such a way that it can be changed without
breaking. A very interesting move, and also completely the opposite
approach to the one taken with color contrast (or for reflow).

What it makes me wonder is some subset of "rules" can be defined for
building a site that support customisation. For instance, is it okay to put
informative images in CSS when there's an off screen text alternative?
Should CSS content ever be used to inject "content" in the WCAG meaning of
the word? It seems to me that, right now, there's no guidance on what you
should and shouldn't do with your CSS (and HTML?) in order to support good
custom stylesheets. But if there was, it might not take a CSS expert to
create them.

Wilco

Post by Wayne Dick
Nothing actionable today. That's why I am on the IG. I will formulate
something actionable soon.
I am gathering up ideas.
Best Wayne

Post by Patrick H. Lauke
Is there anything actually actionable you're hoping to get from this
discussion? It's interesting, but I'm missing the context, or a concrete
"and for this reason I think we should do X".
P

Post by Wayne Dick
I will now focus on users with low vision. It is a good example

because

Post by Wayne Dick
the scope is simpler than cognitive disabilities, but the solution

space

Post by Wayne Dick
is similar.
The current model of AT does not work for people who have low vision

and

Post by Wayne Dick
cognitive disabilities. We need a personalized user interface. The
access we need is like the access given by stylesheets when they work.
We need selector level personalization.
It is very clear that this cannot be provided by an AT that runs

outside

Post by Wayne Dick
of the browser. That would be an extreme breach of security. Right now
CSS or browser extensions are the only way to achieve this result.

There

Post by Wayne Dick
are difficulties with both of these, but for now that is all there is.
Ultimately there needs to be a way to pass style preferences to

browsers

Post by Wayne Dick
in a way that uses can get their visual style changes. Until then, CSS
and extensions are it.
Don't discount a tool that serves subject matter experts with
disabilities. We do need to work. Ordinary users with low vision cannot
write CSS. Most people who are blind don't write screen readers but

they

Post by Wayne Dick
need them. (The NVDA staff is a cool exception)
The bottom line is that CSS is one of the only languages that can

safely

Post by Wayne Dick
mitigate the accessibility needs of the small group people with low
vision who are IT professionals. It keeps many us working.
It is extremely scary to live in a world where a basic method of
accommodation can be taken away without notice, because nobody
understands the extreme value of these tool to our lives. CSS is one.
Configurable UI tools are another.
Jon's comment on Windows 10 really illustrates the problem. For Jon the
change was good. For me it made my 13 inch laptop impractical to use.
Personalization is really necessary, but mainstream users think of it

as

Post by Wayne Dick
a nice feature, not a necessity. That is why people with fully sight

and

Post by Wayne Dick
no print disability can talk so casually about using CSS as an AT. CSS
is not ideal, but for many it's infinitely better than nothing, or
screen magnification.
User stylesheets written to modify visual access are Assistive
Technology. "hardware and/or software that acts as auser agent
<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#useragentdef>, or along with a

mainstream

Post by Wayne Dick
user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users
with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user
agents" WCAG 2.0
Best Wayne
On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 5:28 PM J. Albert Bowden
"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no

stable

Post by Wayne Dick
CSS-APIs that you could work against."
selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but
that shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to
be scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles
that are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style
at a higher specificity.
we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in
selectivity; offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the
dom, present page elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces
of this, etc.
i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for
cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance;
however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many
people know about bookmarklets.
maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y

expert.

Post by Wayne Dick
On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there
are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is
basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to
convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce
breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.
We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is
possibly easier than it might seem.
cheers
tobias
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility
experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant
technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they
work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left
out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure
a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other

things.

Post by Wayne Dick
I use Safari because the browser will host user
stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this
important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a
form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape
that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and
cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen
magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how
to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores

zero.

Post by Wayne Dick
Wayne Dick
--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at

https://yandex.com
http://www.opera.com/mail/

Post by Wayne Dick
Is there really still nothing better?
--
J. Albert Bowden II
https://bowdenweb.com/ <http://bowdenweb.com/>

--
Patrick H. Lauke
www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com

[Jonathan Avila]

* there's no guidance on what you should and shouldn't do with your CSS (and HTML?) in order to support good custom stylesheets. But if there was, it might not take a CSS expert to create them.

Wilco, one of the examples that I run into when replacing the page font with one I find easier to read is that icon fonts are clobbered. One suggested technique is to use role=”img” on these icon fonts so they can more easily be omitted from the replacement styles I use.

Similarly, knowing which background images are really decorative and can be removed versus the background images that are meaningful and can stay is another challenge since there is no clear way to communicate their significance.

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
Level Access
***@levelaccess.com
703.637.8957 office

Visit us online:
Website<http://www.levelaccess.com/> | Twitter<https://twitter.com/LevelAccessA11y> | Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/LevelAccessA11y/> | LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/company/level-access> | Blog<http://www.levelaccess.com/blog/>

Looking to boost your accessibility knowledge? Check out our free webinars!<https://www.levelaccess.com/compliance-resources/webinars/>

The information contained in this transmission may be attorney privileged and/or confidential information intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.

From: Wilco Fiers <***@deque.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2018 6:41 PM
To: Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com>
Cc: Patrick H. Lauke <***@splintered.co.uk>; WAI Interest Group <w3c-wai-***@w3.org>
Subject: Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

Hey Wayne,
I really appreciate this e-mail thread. Going from its past work, AG hasn't really seen custom stylesheets as assistive technologies. For example: Color contrast is easily solved with a good custom style sheet, provided the content author didn't do a few things that can get in the way of the custom stylesheet. But rather than prohibit that, WCAG went the route where there's some base level every site needs to meet, and whoever needs more is just out of luck when it comes to those sites where custom styles don't work.

The opposite was true for the WCAG 2.1 rule about word spacing (which is where I can see your influence at work Wayne!), where the requirement wasn't to have some minimum amount of word / line / paragraph spacing, but rather to build the UI in such a way that it can be changed without breaking. A very interesting move, and also completely the opposite approach to the one taken with color contrast (or for reflow).

What it makes me wonder is some subset of "rules" can be defined for building a site that support customisation. For instance, is it okay to put informative images in CSS when there's an off screen text alternative? Should CSS content ever be used to inject "content" in the WCAG meaning of the word? It seems to me that, right now, there's no guidance on what you should and shouldn't do with your CSS (and HTML?) in order to support good custom stylesheets. But if there was, it might not take a CSS expert to create them.

Wilco

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 11:05 PM Wayne Dick <***@gmail.com<mailto:***@gmail.com>> wrote:
Nothing actionable today. That's why I am on the IG. I will formulate something actionable soon.

I am gathering up ideas.


Best Wayne

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 11:40 AM Patrick H. Lauke <***@splintered.co.uk<mailto:***@splintered.co.uk>> wrote:
Is there anything actually actionable you're hoping to get from this
discussion? It's interesting, but I'm missing the context, or a concrete
"and for this reason I think we should do X".

P

Post by Wayne Dick
I will now focus on users with low vision. It is a good example because
the scope is simpler than cognitive disabilities, but the solution space
is similar.
The current model of AT does not work for people who have low vision and
cognitive disabilities. We need a personalized user interface. The
access we need is like the access given by stylesheets when they work.
We need selector level personalization.
It is very clear that this cannot be provided by an AT that runs outside
of the browser. That would be an extreme breach of security. Right now
CSS or browser extensions are the only way to achieve this result. There
are difficulties with both of these, but for now that is all there is.
Ultimately there needs to be a way to pass style preferences to browsers
in a way that uses can get their visual style changes. Until then, CSS
and extensions are it.
Don't discount a tool that serves subject matter experts with
disabilities. We do need to work. Ordinary users with low vision cannot
write CSS. Most people who are blind don't write screen readers but they
need them. (The NVDA staff is a cool exception)
The bottom line is that CSS is one of the only languages that can safely
mitigate the accessibility needs of the small group people with low
vision who are IT professionals. It keeps many us working.
It is extremely scary to live in a world where a basic method of
accommodation can be taken away without notice, because nobody
understands the extreme value of these tool to our lives. CSS is one.
Configurable UI tools are another.
Jon's comment on Windows 10 really illustrates the problem. For Jon the
change was good. For me it made my 13 inch laptop impractical to use.
Personalization is really necessary, but mainstream users think of it as
a nice feature, not a necessity. That is why people with fully sight and
no print disability can talk so casually about using CSS as an AT. CSS
is not ideal, but for many it's infinitely better than nothing, or
screen magnification.
User stylesheets written to modify visual access are Assistive
Technology. "hardware and/or software that acts as auser agent
<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#useragentdef>, or along with a mainstream
user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users
with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user
agents" WCAG 2.0
Best Wayne
On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 5:28 PM J. Albert Bowden
"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against."
selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but
that shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to
be scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles
that are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style
at a higher specificity.
we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in
selectivity; offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the
dom, present page elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces
of this, etc.
i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for
cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance;
however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many
people know about bookmarklets.
maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y expert.
On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there
are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is
basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to
convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce
breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.
We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is
possibly easier than it might seem.
cheers
tobias
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility
experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant
technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they
work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left
out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure
a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other things.
I use Safari because the browser will host user
stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this
important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a
form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape
that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and
cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen
magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how
to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick
--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at https://yandex.com
Using Opera's long-abandoned mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Is there really still nothing better?
--
J. Albert Bowden II
https://bowdenweb.com/ <http://bowdenweb.com/>

--
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk<http://www.splintered.co.uk> | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

[Katie Haritos-Shea]

This really is a great thread.

** katie **

*Katie Haritos-Shea*

*Principal ICT Accessibility Architect, **Board Member and W3C Advisory
Committee Rep for Knowbility *

*WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA/QA/FinServ/FinTech/Privacy,* *IAAP CPACC+WAS = *
*CPWA* <http://www.accessibilityassociation.org/cpwacertificants>

*Cell: **703-371-5545 <703-371-5545>** |* ****@gmail.com
<***@gmail.com>* *| **Oakton, VA **|* *LinkedIn Profile
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieharitosshea/>*

People may forget exactly what it was that you said or did, but they will
never forget how you made them feel.......

Our scars remind us of where we have been........they do not have to
dictate where we are going.

- there's no guidance on what you should and shouldn't do with your
CSS (and HTML?) in order to support good custom stylesheets. But if there
was, it might not take a CSS expert to create them.
Wilco, one of the examples that I run into when replacing the page font
with one I find easier to read is that icon fonts are clobbered. One
suggested technique is to use role=”img” on these icon fonts so they can
more easily be omitted from the replacement styles I use.
Similarly, knowing which background images are really decorative and can
be removed versus the background images that are meaningful and can stay is
another challenge since there is no clear way to communicate their
significance.
Jonathan
Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
*Level Access*
703.637.8957 office
Website <http://www.levelaccess.com/> | Twitter
<https://twitter.com/LevelAccessA11y> | Facebook
<https://www.facebook.com/LevelAccessA11y/> | LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/company/level-access> | Blog
<http://www.levelaccess.com/blog/>
*Looking to boost your accessibility knowledge? Check out our free
webinars!* <https://www.levelaccess.com/compliance-resources/webinars/>
The information contained in this transmission may be attorney privileged
and/or confidential information intended for the use of the individual or
entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination,
distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.
*Sent:* Thursday, July 19, 2018 6:41 PM
*Subject:* Re: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology
Hey Wayne,
I really appreciate this e-mail thread. Going from its past work, AG
hasn't really seen custom stylesheets as assistive technologies. For
example: Color contrast is easily solved with a good custom style sheet,
provided the content author didn't do a few things that can get in the way
of the custom stylesheet. But rather than prohibit that, WCAG went the
route where there's some base level every site needs to meet, and whoever
needs more is just out of luck when it comes to those sites where custom
styles don't work.
The opposite was true for the WCAG 2.1 rule about word spacing (which is
where I can see your influence at work Wayne!), where the requirement
wasn't to have some minimum amount of word / line / paragraph spacing, but
rather to build the UI in such a way that it can be changed without
breaking. A very interesting move, and also completely the opposite
approach to the one taken with color contrast (or for reflow).
What it makes me wonder is some subset of "rules" can be defined for
building a site that support customisation. For instance, is it okay to put
informative images in CSS when there's an off screen text alternative?
Should CSS content ever be used to inject "content" in the WCAG meaning of
the word? It seems to me that, right now, there's no guidance on what you
should and shouldn't do with your CSS (and HTML?) in order to support good
custom stylesheets. But if there was, it might not take a CSS expert to
create them.
Wilco
Nothing actionable today. That's why I am on the IG. I will formulate
something actionable soon.
I am gathering up ideas.
Best Wayne
Is there anything actually actionable you're hoping to get from this
discussion? It's interesting, but I'm missing the context, or a concrete
"and for this reason I think we should do X".
P

Post by Wayne Dick
I will now focus on users with low vision. It is a good example because
the scope is simpler than cognitive disabilities, but the solution space
is similar.
The current model of AT does not work for people who have low vision and
cognitive disabilities. We need a personalized user interface. The
access we need is like the access given by stylesheets when they work.
We need selector level personalization.
It is very clear that this cannot be provided by an AT that runs outside
of the browser. That would be an extreme breach of security. Right now
CSS or browser extensions are the only way to achieve this result. There
are difficulties with both of these, but for now that is all there is.
Ultimately there needs to be a way to pass style preferences to browsers
in a way that uses can get their visual style changes. Until then, CSS
and extensions are it.
Don't discount a tool that serves subject matter experts with
disabilities. We do need to work. Ordinary users with low vision cannot
write CSS. Most people who are blind don't write screen readers but they
need them. (The NVDA staff is a cool exception)
The bottom line is that CSS is one of the only languages that can safely
mitigate the accessibility needs of the small group people with low
vision who are IT professionals. It keeps many us working.
It is extremely scary to live in a world where a basic method of
accommodation can be taken away without notice, because nobody
understands the extreme value of these tool to our lives. CSS is one.
Configurable UI tools are another.
Jon's comment on Windows 10 really illustrates the problem. For Jon the
change was good. For me it made my 13 inch laptop impractical to use.
Personalization is really necessary, but mainstream users think of it as
a nice feature, not a necessity. That is why people with fully sight and
no print disability can talk so casually about using CSS as an AT. CSS
is not ideal, but for many it's infinitely better than nothing, or
screen magnification.
User stylesheets written to modify visual access are Assistive
Technology. "hardware and/or software that acts as auser agent
<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#useragentdef>, or along with a

mainstream

Post by Wayne Dick
user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users
with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user
agents" WCAG 2.0
Best Wayne
On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 5:28 PM J. Albert Bowden
"I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there are no

stable

Post by Wayne Dick
CSS-APIs that you could work against."
selectors are about as stable as they come and incredibly effective.
a generic stylesheet may not beat specificity 100% of the time, but
that shouldn't discount it, by any means.
moreover, any style sheet added to the document is going to have to
be scripted in, and even more likely in javascript.
so since we are already using javascript, lets just find the styles
that are not winning the specificity wars and then rewrite the style
at a higher specificity.
we can also use javascript to address frailty/brittleness in
selectivity; offer a nav/modal that appears on activation. read the
dom, present page elements in nav/modal with toggles/options, etc.
there are already a ton of bookmarklets that do most of this, pieces
of this, etc.
i actually think bookmarklets are more ideal here for
cross-browse/rplatforms, most particularly in terms of maintenance;
however, then i think it becomes an issue of user adoption. not many
people know about bookmarklets.
maybe i'm missing something entirely? i am certainly not an a11y

expert.

Post by Wayne Dick
On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 21:40:11 +0200, Tobias Bengfort
I think a major issue with user stylesheets is that there
are no stable
CSS-APIs that you could work against. A user-stylesheet is
basically a
monkey-patch that will break on a regular basis.
In order to get this working reliably we would have to
convince authors
to trat their CSS as a public interface and announce
breaking changes
early on. I am not sure this reasonable.
We would. But in a world of CSS preprocessors and so on, it is
possibly easier than it might seem.
cheers
tobias
There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility
experts who
disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant
technology to
mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they
work quite well.
This technology is used primarily be people who are left
out of the
mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure
a personalized
contrast ration, control column width and many other

things.

Post by Wayne Dick
I use Safari because the browser will host user
stylesheets. It is too bad
that other browsers decided to stop supporting this
important assistive
technology.
I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a
form of assistive
technology that is available in a technology landscape
that offers almost
nothing useful for most people with low vision and
cognitive disabilities.
For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen
magnifiers are if I just
used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how
to use them better
than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.
Wayne Dick
--
Chaals: Charles (McCathie) Nevile find more at

https://yandex.com
http://www.opera.com/mail/

Post by Wayne Dick
Is there really still nothing better?
--
J. Albert Bowden II
https://bowdenweb.com/ <http://bowdenweb.com/>

--
Patrick H. Lauke
www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
--
*Wilco Fiers*
Senior Accessibility Engineer - Co-facilitator WCAG-ACT - Chair Auto-WCAG

[ALAN SMITH]

All,

This new guideline has some limits from the second bullet:
 
Success Criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA): The purpose of each input field collecting information about the user can be programmatically determined when:
• The input field serves a purpose identified in the Input Purposes for User Interface Components section; and
• The content is implemented using technologies with support for identifying the expected meaning for form input data.
I don’t think that most existing websites and current coding for form fields have been “implemented using technologies with support for identifying the expected meaning for form input data.”

How do we test for this new guideline?

Alan Smith

[Chaals Nevile]

The most common technology that supports this is HTML.

If you use the autocomplete attribute for form fields, you pass.

The list of Input Purposes was copied from the values for autocomplete
that are listed in the HTML 5.2 specification.

If you don't, because a form field asks for information not in that list,
the requirement is not applicable, and you pass.

If you don't use autocomplete, there are various other ways to say the
same thing, e.g. with microdata or RDFa, but they are more complicated so
I would suggest recommending autocomplete.

When my hands are not so cold, I might describe more about alternative
approaches that pass...

cheers

All,
Success Criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA): The purpose
of each input field collecting information about the >user can be
The input field serves a purpose identified in the Input Purposes for
User Interface Components section; and
The content is implemented using technologies with support for
identifying the expected meaning for form input data.
I don’t think that most existing websites and current coding for form
fields have been “implemented using technologies with support for
identifying the expected >meaning for form input data.”
How do we test for this new guideline?
Alan Smith

[ALAN SMITH]

Chaals,

Thank you for your quick reply.

I appreciate your insight.

Alan Smith

From: Chaals Nevile
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 5:57 PM
To: Jonathan Avila; Wilco Fiers; ALAN SMITH
Cc: WAI Interest Group; ***@gmail.com
Subject: Re: How do we test for meeting the new WCAG 2.1 1.3.5 Identify InputPurpose Level AA

The most common technology that supports this is HTML.

If you use the autocomplete attribute for form fields, you pass.

The list of Input Purposes was copied from the values for autocomplete that are listed in the HTML 5.2 specification.

If you don't, because a form field asks for information not in that list,  the requirement is not applicable, and you pass.

If you don't use autocomplete, there are various other ways to say the same thing, e.g. with microdata or RDFa, but they are more complicated so I would suggest recommending autocomplete.

When my hands are not so cold, I might describe more about alternative approaches that pass...

cheers

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 02:42:01 +1000, ALAN SMITH <***@gmail.com> wrote:

All,
 
This new guideline has some limits from the second bullet:
 
Success Criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA): The purpose of each input field collecting information about the user can be programmatically determined when:
• The input field serves a purpose identified in the Input Purposes for User Interface Components section; and
• The content is implemented using technologies with support for identifying the expected meaning for form input data.
I don’t think that most existing websites and current coding for form fields have been “implemented using technologies with support for identifying the expected meaning for form input data.”
 
How do we test for this new guideline?
 
Alan Smith
 
 

[Kazuhito Kidachi]

Post by Wayne Dick
Nothing actionable today. That's why I am on the IG. I will formulate
something actionable soon.

As to say about action item, I’m wondering how we can make browser vendors
positive about following UAAG.

UAAG 2.0 has already good guidelines about user stylesheets, e.g. 1.7.2
Support User Stylesheet or User Style Modification Mechanism [1].

Best,

Kazuhito

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG20/#sc_172

[Userite]

Just to let you know that Firefox has the option to over-ride the website’s stylesheet for fonts and colours. I use it sometimes for my dyslexic nephew by setting yellow color and blue back-ground color.

You can set any combination you want, Just go to the menu pull-down (top right) and select options.
Go down to Language and Appearance – fonts and colors. Select your options and set Override the colors to Always.

Internet Explorer also allows you to over-ride colors or even to set your own stylesheet. Go to options menu (top right) and select “Internet Options”. In the general tab you can set colors etc, or select the Accessibility button slelect your own stylesheet.

If you decide to use your own stylesheet don’t forget to use the css selector *
For example
* { color: yellow;
background-color: blue; }

Does the same trick and changes everything whilst *p only changes paragraphs.

Hope that helps
Richard Warren
Userite

https://www.website-accessibility.com



From: Wayne Dick
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2018 12:50 AM
To: W3C WAI ig
Subject: User Stylesheets are Assistive Technology

There are lots of people who claim to be accessibility experts who disregard the value of user stylesheets as a significant technology to mitigate problems of visual interface. Actually they work quite well.

This technology is used primarily be people who are left out of the mainstream ATs. They are a way to change colors, ensure a personalized contrast ration, control column width and many other things.

I use Safari because the browser will host user stylesheets. It is too bad that other browsers decided to stop supporting this important assistive technology.

I think the AG should at least recognize that this is a form of assistive technology that is available in a technology landscape that offers almost nothing useful for most people with low vision and cognitive disabilities.

For those who want to tell me how wonderful screen magnifiers are if I just used them correctly, don't bother. I probably know how to use them better than you. For my needs, screen magnification scores zero.

Wayne Dick