Generally speaking, contrast requirements should vary by size/weight.
Unless it's larger text, you don't want any lighter than #333, but
ideally the body text should always be #000 if it's on a light
background. (If this causes eye strain it's usually a problem with the
specific font, the monitor, or the font rendering of the system itself,
and with lower-end monitors it's the lighter text that causes far more
problems.)
Minimum font sizes should take into consideration different fonts, OSes,
and screens, too. Consider an example of arial vs verdana: on my
computer, arial becomes illegible under 10px, but verdana can often
still be read down to 8px (and 8px verdana is apparently equivalent to
10px arial). On a windows 7, both become illegible under 10px, but
render about the same at 10px.
This is a different problem from just size, however - on a standard
screen, there simply aren't enough pixels to render the characters, and
while the above were extreme examples, this is already an issue as large
as 12px and higher (Vector uses 13px). While hinting and whatnot help to
mitigate this, not all systems handle it the same way, or as well, some
even completely failing on some fonts.
On the other hand, you often don't see this at all if you're using a
high pixel density display because those do have sufficient pixels. But
most users do not have access to those.
(Agree about the serif blocks - you get similar effects with serif
fonts, and the effects there can be much more extreme.)
-I
On 20/02/14 19:11, Brandon Harris wrote:
Body text color #222222, no other text lighter than #555555. No serif
font blocks. No font size smaller than 11 point.
On Feb 20, 2014, at 11:05 AM, Ryan Kaldari <[email protected]> wrote:
In the old days (2011), the WMF had design guidelines that discussed accessibility issues
such as appropriate font sizes, use of colors, and text contrast. These guidelines were
later replaced with the Agora guidelines
(https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Design) which specify only that
"We must enable access for users with impairments."
Accessibility is central to our mission as an organization and very important
to our community. In fact the en.wiki community has enacted their own
comprehensive accessibility guidelines for content:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Accessibility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Accessibility_dos_and_don'ts
Mediawiki developers also have a set of published accessibility guidelines:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Accessibility_guide_for_developers
The issue of accessibility in MediaWiki UX design has been raised numerous
times in the recent past, most commonly in regard to font sizes and colors. I'm
personally aware of it coming up at least 5 times in the past year (Typography
Refresh, Flow, Echo, Mobile, NavPopups). Rather than rehashing the same
discussions each time, I would encourage the design team to come up with a new
set of accessibility guidelines that everyone can refer to and agree on. I
would encourage stealing ideas from the en.wiki guidelines and the WCAG
guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/). I would also suggest
that the design team invest in a pair of scratched-up coke-bottle glasses that
each design mock-up can be tested with :)
Ryan Kaldari
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Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation
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