suggestion for style documentation

[jadelennox]

I'm curious as to whether or not I am the only person who ends up having accessibility issues when people modify their styles to change the text of basic features. Specifically:

1. It's bad enough when the text goes back and forth between two different standards (e.g. "user info" versus "profile").
2. It's worse when the text is something the style designer came up with to be original but which still carries clear meaning (e.g. "about me").
3. It's extremely difficult when the text is all flavor and doesn't convey much meaning (e.g. "happy tracks in the sand").

Am I the only person for whom this is an accessibility issue? If this is a general issue and not just me, perhaps we could write some documentation and propose it to the style team as guidelines for what kind of textual changes are worth avoiding if you really care about accessibility in your style. Since end-users can change those texts, not just style designers, we could come up with something brief and nonintimidating for the customization pages.

(By the way, I know I was working on a couple of open accessibility tickets, and I vanished for several months due to personal issues. I'm back as of this week, and have started looking at those tickets again. Sorry for the vanishing.)

Comments

[jeshyr]

I find it cognitively confusing, especially on days when my brain isn't working well. Having to figure out that "profile" "user info" "about me" and "tracks in the sand" all mean the same thing uses up cognitive energy (spoons) which I'd rather use reading blogs.

But for me, the style=light is a fine option and once we get sticky style=mine I'll be a much happier camper!

r

[lauredhel]

I have exactly the same issue - I like seeing people's journal styles as far as colours (now that I have a black-on-white plugin!), images, etc; but I do a cmd-F on a page for navigation text when I get lost, and when people change the text for profile or leave-a-comment, I usually just stay lost.

[azurelunatic]

Even folks without significant cognitive impairment get baffled by really obscure comment text. If it does not literally say "leave a comment", "speak", or something directly related to commenting, it becomes a puzzle that I have to work out. The worst example I can think of is "down to acorn" for "reply to this comment". I have to look at the links to figure out which is which, every single time, unless I have been in there recently. It is difficult for me, and I am not impaired. I boggle to think of how difficult it would be for someone who is impaired.