Apca updates g5

[Myndex]

Hey Bruce, if you get a chance can you look this over? Did a big overhaul, and including the "new" conformance model. @bruce-usab

Thank yoU!

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Important updates that bring the working draft up to current with the APCA guidelines and lookup table.

NOTE: I waited until APCA was substantially stable before doing these needed revisions. APCA has been stable for over a year (no material changes in code and calculation resutls, only new features, and some updates to the lookup table).

This pull request does a lot:

• Repurposed "examples" into "Test Techniques", and placed explanatory materials there to keep the test page as simple as possible.

• Updated Lookup tables to current versions

• Updated "tests" page for clarity and brevity, and also to encompass the new testing concepts of "objective" and "Qualified" tests, etc.

• Added links to resources, both W3 and external, and added the beginning of a bibliography.

• Maintenance, grammar, and clarity fixes.

• Short tutorial on the proper setup of a "digitial color meter" eye dropper tool.

More!

Side Note: This should not be called "font characteristics" what is the pricess of correcting the name?

Andy

[bruce-usab]

My only two-bit comment is that I have aspirations for writing something about how bad pure-red-on-white is (since now that red-on-black is called out) because of what happens when it is printed on paper.

[Myndex]

My only two-bit comment is that I have aspirations for writing something about how bad pure-red-on-white is (since now that red-on-black is called out) because of what happens when it is printed on paper.

Hi Bruce @bruce-usab

Yea, printing RED with process colors (CMYK), and getting a good result is particularly difficult. Red is a color that prints best using a separate spot color/Pantone color. In the physical print world, 8-color offset presses are not uncommon. They use the standard 4 process colors, CMYK, but also can be loaded with several spot colors, or specialty inks, such as a lacquer for that "shiny letters" look. As such, if a brand has a particular color, they're more likely to print it as a spot color, so there is no half toning, and they can get an exact match, and a more vibrant outcome.

Conversely, while it's hard to print red (and deep green and deep blue) using CMYK, a good CMYK printer does a better job of cyan or yellow compared to sRGB:

The irregularly shaped CMYK gamut never covers the sRGB primaries, but it exceeds even P3 in the area of Cyan. (GRACol Coated is a profile for an offset press, i.e. magazine or glossy book).

The PR

Thanks for looking over the pull request...

Two things that are missing from WCAG 3 that I have guidelines close to ready for are:

1. Non-text contrast, along with non-text use-cases.
2. Color (hue/saturation) and understanding color vision issues.

But I am not clear on steps forward for them.

And currently working on "non-color contrasts" (shape/size/position) as this connects to visual hierarchy.

Thank you for reading

Andy

[bruce-usab]

Thanks @Myndex for that helpful reply and, also, I agree with those two missing things. The first seems pretty straightforward to me. As I understand it, the first public draft of W3CAG focused only on text because that seemed simpler. It will be easier to come to consensus requirements for foreground text and its background OTOH, I do not think one can really draw a clear line between, say, weird Unicode characters and icons so it also makes sense to have non-text contrast under consideration ASAP.

Your second item is also worthy of exposition. The real challenge there, I think, is to keep it short.

Not have clear steps forward for them is okay, I think, because they have been long-standing challenges.

Faithful color reproduction in print (and paint and other pigments) I presume the various industries (including Pantone) have traction on. But speaking of seeming intractable problems and print, is there consensus on how to index/value the contrast between foreground text and its background? USAB would very much like to have phrasing stronger than light-on-dark or dark-on-light!

My concern for red print on white paper is with its mundane typical use in an office environment, so several sentences or whole paragraph in 12 point Times New Roman. For someone with Retinitis pigmentosa, the common visual experience that the text blurs and fades and can cause eyes to water or hurt.

[Myndex]

Hi Bruce @bruce-usab

My concern for red print on white paper is with its mundane typical use in an office environment, so several sentences or whole paragraph in 12 point Times New Roman. For someone with Retinitis pigmentosa, the common visual experience that the text blurs and fades and can cause eyes to water or hurt.

I am looking for test subjects with Retinitis pigmentosa for the summer study. Some of the study will be remote, so if you have anyone interested I'd love to add them.

IMO printing red text on an office-type CMYK printer is the worst practice... it requires using both the magenta and the yellow ink (or toner) and we have a general rule about "never print text with more than one ink," which maily applies to body text, but text in general — any print head misalignment impacts readability, not to mention trapping problems.

There are several good reasons that text is predominantlhy black when printing ... at least if there is an intention for people to actually read whatever it is... if someone wants text printed in a color, it's done with spot inks on a separate plate — costs more, but done for things like for an annual report for a corporation (often they spend hefty sums for exotic print work).

But monitors:

I am very interested in how some of the new technology monitors like Rec2020 will be perceived by certain color-related impairments.

[Myndex]

And to add: for the present pull request, I've updated the SAPC research tool to display usecases now instead of "levels."

And this now includes a "maximum contrast" line.

https://www.myndex.com/SAPC/

[Myndex]

Responding to what Chris Lilly said in another post, this an svg and MathML of the stable base algorithm (only) of the APCA for WCAG 3 guidelines.

0.0.98G-4g-base

This is stable and has remained unchanged, with these constants, since February 15, 2021.

[bruce-usab]

@Myndex — these edits all look fine to me.

I don't think my "approve" review per GitHub matters in terms of actually advancing the PR. I have been viewing the "Submit review" as just a little bit more feedback mechanism.

But I also had someone note recently that "Approve" is counter-productive from a pragmatic perspective until smooth out the publication workflow.

[Myndex]

I don't think my "approve" review per GitHub matters in terms of actually advancing the PR. I have been viewing the "Submit review" as just a little bit more feedback mechanism.

But I also had someone note recently that "Approve" is counter-productive from a pragmatic perspective until smooth out the publication workflow.

Thank you Bruce @bruce-usab —— I have given up trying to understand the politics of the process here, so I do appreciate feedback like this. I'm just trying to be proactive, for whatever that's worth.

[svgeesus]

This addresses the comments I made in

• Non-normative, passing mention of APCA #640

to my satisfaction. Thanks!

[svgeesus]

Approved, but with a couple of questions

[bruce-usab]

Merge will close #640

[svgeesus]

Approved, but with a couple of questions

Questions all resolved, thanks!

[Myndex]

Hi @michael-n-cooper cc: @alastc

I am inquiring on the status of merging this pull request? It had peer-review and approvals back in June, but it seems stalled. This pull request corrects files that are in in the FPWD. The contrast material that is currently in the FPWD was last updated Oct 29, 2020 making it far out of date, obsolete, and irrelevant.

This PR is the end result of the Silver Visual Contrast Group's efforts.

• FPWD 2020
  • Oct 29, 2020 last time the FPWD was materially updated re contrast.
    • The font table in the current FPWD is unrelated to stable APCA.
    • Leaving it unchanged in the FPWD will only cause confusion.
• 2021 Rescaling & Guideline Development
  • Jan 2021, the algorithm was rescaled for greater accuracy and testability.
    • APCA public beta program began in earnest.
  • Feb 15, 2021, the current, stable base algorithm finalized.
    • Feb/Mar 2021: separate from algorithm, "5 level" score tables & tool created
  • Sept/Oct 2021: defined critical specs for text and non-text guidelines (LVTF)
    • visual contrast guidelines based on use-cases develop
      • guidelines derived directly from peer-reviewed readability research.
      • i.e. the seminal research of Whittaker/Bailey/Lovie-Kitchin & Legge et alia.
    • draft non-text guidelines also.
• 2021 Publishing and Reviews
  • Oct/Nov 2021, it was clear the base APCA algorithm was stable (since Feb 2021.)
    • base algorithm (APCA 0.0.98G-4g) was locked and published on npm
  • Dec 2021, several unsolicited positive, independent, third-party reviews of APCA are published.
    • PRs of new guidelines not ready in time for the December 7, 2021 public draft.
• 2022 Plain Language Docs
  • Jan 2022, at Alastair's suggestion, created brief plain-language docs "WhyAPCA" & "APCA in a Nutshell"
    • Silver/WCAG 3.0 working group moved away from the 0 to 5 scoring.
    • Mar 2022, at CSUN Rachael informed me of challenges relating to conformance and testing, which were then Incorporated into APCA's related guidelines & testing.
• 2022 Use-Case Based Conformance & PR
  • By May 2022, the APCA Lovie-Kitchin et alia use-case-based text and non-text guidelines are formed into bronze/silver/gold conformance levels.
    • completely revised materials for the WCAG 3.0 editor's & FPWD were created, referencing the substantial new work that has occurred since Oct 2020.
      • testing techniques
      • conformance methods
      • design guidance

As this was intended to illustrate, a very substantial amount of work was done in the nearly 2 years between October 2020 and May/June 2022. The revised materials make up this pull request.

Can you please let me know what the status is? The latest editors draft was November 2022, and this was not included and it really should've been. The editor's draft should reflect the current state of the APCA research & guidelines at the very least.

• I made this PR May 22, 2022 when APCA–W3 had been stable for a year and three months
• Today, Dec 26 2022, APCA–W3 basic math and constants have been stable for nearly two years & positively reviewed.

But if this pull request isn't merged into the draft, it won't be seen and can't effectively be commented on.

Is there something I missed that is required for this process? Can you please tell me what I need to facilitate merging this PR so that the FPWD material (or at least the editor's draft) is corrected and brought up to date?

Thank you for reading.

[michael-n-cooper]

OBE by #663