[DRAFT] FAST Checklist

Content is frequently authored with visual rendering the primary consideration. Some users are not able to access visual content, and must use other forms of the content, such as text or audio.

Many users need content to be displayed larger than the default, not just because of un-sharp vision but also to mitigate other visual perception difficulties such as difficulty separating foreground from background.

Users with color vision deficits and other visual impairments have more difficulty separating certain foreground from background colors than average.

Some users with visual impairments and learning disabilities find that customizing text presentation improves their ability to distinguish letters, track lines, etc. Technologies should provide features allowing users to customize typeface, font weight, font style, line / word / letter spacing, margins, line length, justification.

Sometimes pointer and cursor indicators are difficult for users to distinguish and locate, and incessant animation, even simple blinking, can be excessively distracting for some users. Technologies that define pointer and cursor indicators should provide features for user to customize size, color, and animation.

Many accessibility requirements come down to allowing users to customize presentation. When presentation is changed in a way the author or designer did not anticipate, unexpected side effects often appear that create new problems. A frequent situation is when content is resized but the region for the content is not, causing the content to be clipped. Another is when regions resize but do not reposition, making it difficult to use the content at the new scale. Change of font attributes sometimes leads to a similar problem, such as when users change to a heavier font but the space allocated for characters does not increase. Technologies should provide features to ensure that change of display attributes does not create unintended side effects.

Technologies should not provide features that allow authors to create content that blinks (which can be excessively distracting) or flashes (which can be medically disastrous). However, technologies that provide general animation features (even simple ones) may be unable to rule out author usages that create these effects. It is important for such technologies to provide a feature for users to stop animation, or prevent it until requested. More complex technologies should also provide means to mark potentially problematic content, warn users who have opted into the warning, and give users the option to skip or suppress problematic regions of content.

Flexible display mechanisms can cause content to appear in unpredicted locations. This is often a good feature as it allows optimization of display. However, the navigation order of such content sometimes does not match the perceived order, and users have difficulty using linear (i.e., keyboard-based) navigation effectively. Technologies should provide features to ensure when the visual order of content changes, the interaction order changes to match.

Custom color settings benefits not only users with visual perception impairments, but also users who can be distracted by certain colors or combinations. Technologies should provide features to allow users to set their own colors or contrast for text (including background) and standard user interface components.

Allowing user override of author design is most effective when the technology provides rich semantics for content, on which author or default colors are based, that can be easily recolored in a meaningful manner. Technologies should define semantics, or a way for authors to define and communicate the semantics they use, to allow most effective recoloring with minimal advance knowledge of site implementation.

Content authors are frequently concerned with branding, and want to ensure that the color scheme of content communicates the brand. But when the color scheme makes content inaccessible to users this goal can be counter-productive. Technologies can increase author control and user accessibility by providing a way for authors to define multiple color schemes, allowing more accessible schemes still to partake in the branding process, and allowing users to choose from among available schemes.

Experienced color of content is frequently the way users refer to it; for instance in "redlined" text people may say "find my edits in red". Users of assistive technologies who cannot perceive the color directly therefore still have a need to know the color in order to interact with others. Therefore, technologies should define a way for foreground and background color to be reported to assistive technologies and easily searched.

Color contrast problems often arise when the foreground color of one object is overlaid onto the (foreground or background) color of another object, resulting in an unintended contrast. It is therefore important for technologies to allow both the foreground and background color of objects to be set to reasonable values and avoid this overlay problem.

When color compositing rules are not clearly designed, unexpected color contrast can occur. The most frequent problem is when aliasing of edges causes visual artifacts, which in the case of text with its narrow strokes can significantly impact perception. Impacts of borders, shadows, and transparency can also lead to inaccessible contrast. Therefore technologies should specify compositing rules very precisely.

When collecting user input, users must know what input is required for each control. Often this is made evident by visual context, but this does not help non-visual users or users of alternate visual presentations such as magnification. When labels are provided, if they are not programmatically associated with the control, users may not be able to find the correct label. Therefore it is important for technologies to provide ways to associate labels with their controls.

When authors request user input that may require special assistance, such as details of the input format required or how to find an account number on a bill, they may provide extended help in addition to the label. Even if this is positioned near the control, some users may not reliably find it. Therefore technologies should provide a way for authors to explicitly attach extended help (including links to extended help) directly to the control.

If a user inputs data that is not accepted by the system, a report of the issue is made and the user given an opportunity to correct the input. Such error messages are frequently provided at the top of the form, from where it can be difficult for the user to locate the control that needs input corrected. Even if the error message is positioned closer to the control, it can be difficult to find the correct control. Therefore, much like labels and help content, technologies need to provide a way to associate error messages directly with the control to which they apply.

While much user input is collected using platform input services, some users use assistive technologies that work better when interacting programmatically with the content directly, effectively in an alternate user interface. For this to work, technologies need to provide a means for assistive technologies to get and set the nature, state, and value of input controls.

A basic tenet of accessibility is that users should be able to user input and output hardware that is optimal for them. Some use alternate versions of familiar hardware, such as keyboard-compatible and pointing devices, while others use less widespread types of hardware, such as voice recognition, single-switch devices, Braille displays, etc. Technologies should design content input and output methods to be agnostic to the specific hardware used, and provide application programming interfaces for supported hardware types such as keyboard and pointer so other hardware can effectively interact. Technologies should also emphasize the most hardware-neutral form of authoring feasible via more abstract events, and when providing hardware-specific features ensure that multiple types of hardware can be addressed.

Some user input depends on specific physical characteristics of users. For instance, early touch screens required users to have a physical, not a prosthetic, finger, and fingerprint readers also require users to have a fingerprint. Some users do not have the ability to interact with such devices. Technologies should not require specific user characteristics, and should provide alternate ways to accomplish tasks if such features are provided.

Much like the issue of navigation order deviating from display order mentioned above, control order is another frequent source of confusion for users when presentation has been customized. Technologies should provide ways for authors to define the intended order of user input controls.

A major way some users with disabilities access content is via assistive technologies, which provide various supplemental supports for interaction. Many assistive technologies interact with content primarily via accessibility APIs, which contain an abstract model of the content that includes information about each object. The "type" of an object is important for users to know how to use it, which is typically exposed to accessibility APIs as a "role". Technologies should ensure features have a defined type and, if necessary, document accessibility API mappings for the several APIs in use.

Accessibility APIs provide an "accessible name" for each object, which labels it for the user. The accessible name is frequently the label for a form control or the text alternative for an object. Technologies should define how the accessible name for each object type can be determined, and provide features to allow authors to set the accessible name.

Along with the role, many objects require information about properties, states, and values to be fully usable. Properties are generally specific to object types and refine the type of object; states are also specific to object type and provide information about a changeable condition such as checked status of a checkbox or visibility status of an object. All objects have values as well, which is often the text content but can be from another source, such as the user input in a form control. Technologies should define ways for user agents to expose and authors to set properties, states, and values in accessibility APIs that are relevant to full understanding of and interaction with the object type.

Declarative technologies provide structured semantic helping authors to define complete models for objects that can be exposed to accessibility APIs. Imperative technologies give more freedom to the author but provide less built-in accessibility semantics, and sometimes do not provide a way to address accessibility APIs at all. Technologies that use imperative mechanisms to author content need to provide full interfaces to accessibility APIs so authors can set the complete object model.

Especially with novel widgets, users sometimes need context-specific help to learn how to use the widget effectively. This information is only useful if users can easily find it. Therefore, technologies should provide a mechanism for help information to be directly associated with and reachable from the control.

Web content is classically exposed on "pages", each of which contains a different chunk of content. To help users easily identify their location in a set of pages, and navigate to the correct page, each pages should have a title that is effectively metadata. Technologies should provide ways for authors to create unique titles for each page.

Web content is frequently divided into multiple sections, each of which has a distinct topic. Users navigate among these sections to find the content most relevant to their purpose, which is especially important for users of assistive technology that don't provide a two-dimensional view of the content. Technologies should provide a mechanism for authors to provide section titles to help users navigate and identify their location.

Hyperlinks and controls cause changes to the user experience. It is important that users know what change will happen, or what the result of navigating a hyperlink will be. Default or contextual indications may be sufficient for some users but not all. Technologies must provide features allowing authors to unambiguously provide this information.

Assistive technology that process language, such as screen readers, braille displays, and voice input, change according to human language of content. For instance, pronunciation rules and the effect of certain utterances may change. Technologies need to allow authors to indicate the language of content, both as a whole and for regions where it differs.

Abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms, idioms, and jargon comprise usages of content that may not be familiar to all users, so it can be helpful for authors to provide supplemental information about meaning. Abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms are also often frequently pronounced different from their spelling, their special nature may not be obvious from pronunciation alone. Therefore technologies should allow authors to provide pronunciation and meaning guidance for these language features.

Many languages have lexical features that can be pronounced different ways and that carry different meanings. Context generally clarifies intent, but this can be less effective when assistive technologies use default pronunciations. Therefore technologies should provide features to allow authors to clarify pronunciation intent when needed.

Users of some assistive technologies experience content in a linear fashion, which can make it hard to find intended content that is located after several blocks of less relevant content such as navigation and sidebars. Other users have difficulty making sense of the page design due to complexity or the effects of magnification. Supporting users to find relevant content quickly is important to effective use, and the best way to do this is to provide ways to identify regions of content easily. This can be done via headings but region type semantics is also particularly helpful. The main content region is the most important for users to find quickly, but other regions such as navigation, headers, footers, sidebars, and subsections are also important. Technologies should provide features to allow authors to identify content regions.

Declarative technologies create sets of pre-defined semantics that authors use to structure content. Because the semantics are well-defined, they can be broadly supported across the entire tool chain, including by assistive technologies. Imperative technologies, by contrast, don't define semantics in advance, which allows creation of new forms of content but requires authors to implement all aspects of the user experience, including accessibility aspects that are frequently overlooked. For this reason, technologies should provide declarative semantics for known feature types.

Providing an accessible user experience sometimes requires tools to combine the features of or support rapid navigation between multiple related objects. Technologies should provide ways for authors to define these relationships clearly and unambiguously.

Structural semantics provide information about the role of content within the whole, while presentational semantics define intended presentation. Authors frequently use presentation to convey structure, yet when taken out of context this presentation is not meaningful to all users. Technologies should emphasize structural semantics over presentational semantics, and support styling on the basis of structure rather than inferring structure on the basis of style.

If technologies do provide presentational semantics, they should define clear mappings to existing structural semantics as well, allowing users to interact with content on the basis of implied structure.

Many accessibility problems in web content arise from authors attempting to work around limitations of the content language and using the technology in a way that it was not intended. Technologies should provide rich feature sets that allows authors to accomplish their goals without resort to inaccessible usages.

Finding a given location in a document is important for a variety of use cases. Users of some assistive technologies require the tool to navigate to the location for them and may be confused if the location is merely approximate. Technologies should enable precise location finding, not only by supporting unique IDs but by structuring the language such that unambiguous and replicable selectors can be used and shared.

Meaning is conveyed by a variety of presentational attributes. Separated blocks of text represent paragraphs, indented text represents quotes, short enlarged text indicates headings, bold text conveys emphasis, relative size indicates relative importance, etc. Technologies should define structural semantics for such features.

Some visual media cannot at present be made directly accessible to some users. Accessibility is provided via text or audio descriptions, either as part of the content or as an easily found supplementary resource. Technologies should provide mechanisms to provide these descriptions and associate them with the media.

Descriptions are sometimes more helpful when they can be accessed along with the main video content. Technologies should provide a mechanism to synchronize descriptions, e.g., via additional audio tracks, timed text, etc.

It is harder to provide descriptions for live content, because the description must be produced at the same time as the content itself. Nonetheless, for some live content such as newscasts with a broad audience, this can be an important feature. Technologies should provide support for live descriptions.

While most media can be stopped (where replay restarts from the beginning) or paused (where replay restarts from where it starts), the controls to do so can be inaccessible to users. Technologies need to provide accessible controls to do this, and also support programmatic control so assistive technologies can pause, stop, and start media playback. This support is important even for media that is not generally intended to be used in this way, such as short autoplay clips, in order to provide users control over excessive distraction.

Some users use multiple video or audio devices to tune their accessible interaction. For instance, a screen reader user may direct content audio to a different device than screen reader audio in order to reduce collision, or a magnifier user may direct video to a separate screen in order to better arrange their available screen space. Technologies should provide features to support this.

Like descriptions of video, transcriptions of audio is important for some users. Authors should be able to provide text transcripts or signed video alternatives and associate them directly with the primary content.

Captions are essentially text transcripts that are synchronized to appear in small blocks when the relevant audio is playing. Closed captions are visible only on request, and are best provided in a timed text track although they are sometimes provide in a separate video track. Open captions are included directly within the source video. Technologies should provide features to allow authors to create closed and open captions.

Some users require different volume levels than default, and may need the relative volume of different elements to be different. Technologies should provide ways for users to adjust the volume of audio content within the content, not simply relying on hardware volume settings.

Understanding of audio is improved when background sounds do not occlude foreground or primary audio. To support this, authors should be able to set background and foreground levels separately. Ideally, users should also be able to adjust them separately via separate audio tracks.

When background audio makes understanding of content too difficult, users should be able to suppress it without losing the foreground audio. Technologies should provide features to make this possible, e.g., via support of multiple audio tracks.

Like photosensitive epilepsy, audiosensitive epilepsy is known to occur. The triggering conditions are less widely known at this time, but nonetheless technologies should avoid enabling authoring of triggering content, or provide means to detect, warn, avoid, and suppress triggering content.

Because of the additional time cost to using assistive technologies, or because of difficulty processing content, some users need more time to accomplish tasks than average. Common time limits can be time for response before a login session expires, or time before content automatically refreshes or changes. When technologies allow authors to set time limits, they should provide ways for users to request extensions to the time limit - before the expiration of the limit causes a disastrous interruption to their use. Some content does require a time limit, such as financial transactions or testing, so technologies should also allow authors or test proctors to define limits for how much extension users should be able to obtain.

Different activities require different amounts of time for different users. Technologies should allow authors to set time limits in a fine-grained manner when needed.

While text is the universal accessible alternative, it is still not the best format for some users. Technologies should allow authors to provide non-text alternatives to text content when needed. Various types of alternatives are useful in different situations, including visual such as icons or movies, auditory such as pronunciation cues and recorded speech, and haptic.

Even though text alternatives for non-text content is generally recommended, in some situations a non-text alternative is more suitable. For instance, a haptic version of a map, in which features are conveyed by touch features, can be easier to understand than a text alternative. Technologies should allow authors to provide these enhance alternatives in addition to text alternatives.

Some non-text objects can be represented as text, such as form controls, user interface objects, etc. Authors have no inherent text version that can be meaningfully exposed to the user. In this case, technologies should allow authors to provide a short label for the object.

In addition to labels, authors should be able to provide extended text alternatives to better describe non-text objects. Technologies should provide a feature for this extended description that is distinct from the short label, and that can be associated with the object.

Extended text alternatives should allow authors to use, and users to benefit from, full text semantics rather than reduce them to plain text.

Some non-text content does not require an alternative version because it does not perform a function important to understanding the overall content, such as objects to facilitate layout, add graphical interest, etc. In order to avoiding requiring users to determine their role, technologies should provide a mechanism for authors to state explicitly that the object does not require an alternate version

Sometimes authoring tools prompt authors to provide alternative content, but they do not do so. Technologies should provide a feature to allow the user to be notified that the author chose not to provide alternative content.

Some authoring tools attempt to generate alternate content, but are not always able to. Technologies should allow tools to indicate to users that they were not able to generate alternate content.

Technologies should enable authors to associate alternative content unambiguously with the main content.

Sometimes, it is appropriate for authors to provide multiple forms of alternate content. Technologies should allow more than one unit of alternate content to be associated with a given object.

Replaces, referenced directly from, at same location of initial content.

This is a developing area, being explored by the SVG Accessibility Task Force.

Technologies that support internationalization must not overlook accessibility features. In particular for content alternatives, technologies should support including multiple language alternatives, language identification and changes within alternative content, text directionality identification, etc.

For instance, captions should be able to have color and style changed by the user. Text alternatives should allow rich content. Audio descriptions should be separable from other sound.

Some technologies encode content into a binary format that requires specific software to execute and render the content. Unless that format provide robust interaction with accessibility APIs and comprehensive transformation support, this will reduce the scope of accessible transformation that could be possible for the content. Technologies should choose content formats that allow easy transformation including from third-party tools and services.

Content manipulated by an API is generally generated into a user interface. Technologies should provide guidance to ensure that user agents or dynamic content applications expose the full set of accessibility information available in the API.

Transmission protocols exchange content between devices. Sometimes protocols remove content viewed as unimportant, or restrict what can be transmitted for security or provenance reasons. This can have unintended impacts on accessibility features in the content. Technologies defining transmission profiles need to ensure all aspects of the content relevant to accessibility are included.

On the Web, content is typically exchanged between a client and server. For accessibility, some third-party tools may act between these endpoints to modify the content to a form that is more suitable for the user. While transmission protocols need to avoid unintended modification of the stream, they also need to provide support for this use case.