Understanding WCAG SC 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics
Instructions provided for understanding and operating content do not rely solely on sensory characteristics of components such as shape, size, visual location, orientation, or sound. (Level A)
Sensory Characteristics Transcript
Hello everyone! Today, we’re going to talk about sensory characteristics and their requirements, purpose, importance, failure scenarios, and how we can fix them.Consider this: look towards your right and press the big round button on your remote. Most of us can easily follow these instructions in a real-time, face-to-face conversation. However, what happens when a user with no vision encounters a webpage with instructions that say, “press the right-pointing arrow to go to the next screen”? In this virtual setting, with visual cues, the user may not know the shape, location, or size of the object the instruction refers to, as no monitor or touchscreen presents the object in a tactile form. Therefore, instructions for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics like shape, size, visual location, orientation, or sound.
This is important because individuals with limited vision or no vision cannot comprehend visual cues, and those who are hard of hearing or deaf cannot understand sound cues. Relying on these sensory characteristics can restrict the effectiveness of instructions. Designers and developers should include additional cues to ensure accessibility for all users.
Let’s look at some failure scenarios. For instance, an application uses a text mark alone to identify completed steps. An online game instructs users to “click the big round button at the center of the screen” to start the game. A chart relies on a graphical symbol to identify the growth area of the market, and a vocabulary game instructs users to “pronounce the word after the chime.” These examples highlight the issues with relying solely on sensory characteristics.
To fix these problems, appropriate instructions should carry the labels of buttons or UI controls. Additional sensory characteristics, like color, should not be the only means to identify UI controls or processes. Visual clues, such as a flash (not more than once per second), can accompany audio cues in charts, infographics, and other data representations. Moreover, it is crucial to provide text alternatives to graphical symbols. UI controls should be labeled textually and programmatically in all instances to avoid reliance solely on sensory characteristics.
This is the end of the video. Thank you for joining! If you liked the video, do like and subscribe.
This success criterion requires that instructions or information to understand or operate the web content do not use only visual or auditory clues. Such clues include shape, size, location, orientation and sound clues. This doesn’t mean use of shape and/or location is discouraged altogether as using shape and/or size is an effective way of providing information. Similarly, in some of the languages, ‘above’ and ‘below’ mean the immediate ‘previous’ or ‘after’ contents. In such cases, if the reading order is correct, then it is fine with statements like “Choose one of the options below”.
Note that this success criterion applies only to digital content and not to physical devices such as ATMs or check-in kiosks where the shape of the physical buttons (tactile clues) must be understood in their form.
For Whom it benefits
- People who are blind or low vision who cannot see the shape, size or location
- People with cognitive disabilities who cannot understand shape, size or location as clues
- People who are deaf and deaf-blind who cannot understand audio clues.
Examples that would fail
- A calendar widget where the current date and the selected date have a diamond shaped glyph alone to indicate so
- In a shopping flow, the completed steps have an (X) icon alone to indicate so
- In an online learning site, while doing exercises, completion of steps is conveyed with a sound of the bell alone
- In an online survey, the instruction says “click the triangle button at the bottom right to go to the next page”
How do I address this?
To address this, simply use more than one clue to instruct or inform the users. Using a combination of shape/size/location/orientation along with color/text would take care of all the users’ needs.
