Hover styling for inputs (radio, checkbox, text)

[anandamaryon1]

What

Investigate whether adding some hover styling to inputs would help communicate to users that they are interactive elements of the page.

Currently, radios, checkboxes and text inputs to not have any hover styling.

Why

NHS Login has received the following feedback from an accessibility audit from Digital Accessibility Group (DAC).

Reported issue: Some low vision users find it difficult to determine if an element can be activated if relying on a cursor change alone. A cursor change can be difficult to spot for low vision users, and some users find it helpful if additional highlighting is present.

Suggested solution: an additional highlight could be added to interactive elements on hover.
For example, radio buttons could show a thickened border on hover.

Upon discussing with a gov.uk accessibility specialist they said:

It's definitely not a WCAG fail. But it is an accessibility issue for lower vision users who rely on using a mouse and therefore need to know where the pointer is on the screen when they move the mouse. What's the reason for having a focus state for keyboard users is a similar reason for having hover states for mouse users. The main difference is that mouse users can generally see the pointer while keyboard users might not see the focus (if it's been removed). But the pointer is quite small for low vision users. There are tools that make the pointer bigger but not everyone uses them or is aware of them. So, it's definitely a lesser issue than focus styles because there are various tools that help. But I've heard from multiple low vision users that they would appreciate a better hover style to make it clearer to them what they are hovering over.

Therefore, it seems that it could have a positive impact on usability for users, particularly with low vision.

Related issues

Links to #19 (comment) #19 (comment) on issue #19

Also discussed on gov.uk: alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog#59 (comment) and alphagov/govuk-frontend#3695, they focussed on fixes for windows high contrast mode: alphagov/govuk-frontend#3777