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This is an early unpublished editor's draft; content is incomplete and subject to change.

Hover or focus content dismissible

foundational

Normative Text

A mechanism is available to dismiss content that appears on pointer hover or keyboard focus without moving pointer hover or keyboard focus, unless the additional content does not obscure or replace other content

Applies when

  • Receiving and then removing pointer hover or keyboard focus triggers additional content to become visible and then hidden, and the visual presentation of the additional content is controlled by the author and not by the user agent.

This applies to content that appears in addition to the triggering of the interactive element itself. Since hidden interactive elements that are made visible on keyboard focus (such as links used to skip to another part of a page/view) do not present additional content, they are not covered by this requirement.

Tests

This section is non-normative.

Procedure

For additional content that appears on hover:

  1. Check that the content can be closed without moving the pointer way from the trigger. Either by pressing Esc, by pressing another documented keyboard shortcut, or by activating the trigger.

For additional content that appears on focus:

  1. Check that the content can be closed without moving the focus away from the trigger. Either by pressing Esc, by pressing another other documented keyboard shortcut, or by activating the trigger.

Expected results

  • For additional content that appears on hover: #1 is true.
  • For additional content that appears on focus: #1 is true.

Tests

This content needs to be written.

Key Terms

accessibility support set

group of user agents and assistive technologies you test with

The AGWG is considering defining a default set of user agents and assistive technologies that they use when validating guidelines.

Accessibility support sets may vary based on language, region, or situation.

If you are not using the default accessibility set, the conformance report should indicate what set is being used.

accessibility supported

available and working in the user agents and assistive technology in the accessibility support set

The working group intended to include a default accessibility support set. See Default accessibility support set #277.

actively available

available for the user to perceive and use

assistive technology

hardware and/or software that acts as a user agent, or along with a mainstream user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user agents

Functionality provided by assistive technology includes alternative presentations (e.g., as synthesized speech or magnified content), alternative input methods (e.g., voice), additional navigation or orientation mechanisms, and content transformations (e.g., to make tables more accessible).

Assistive technologies often communicate data and messages with mainstream user agents by using and monitoring APIs.

The distinction between mainstream user agents and assistive technologies is not absolute. Many mainstream user agents provide some features to assist individuals with disabilities. The basic difference is that mainstream user agents target broad and diverse audiences that usually include people with and without disabilities. Assistive technologies target narrowly defined populations of users with specific disabilities. The assistance provided by an assistive technology is more specific and appropriate to the needs of its target users. The mainstream user agent may provide important functionality to assistive technologies like retrieving web content from program objects or parsing markup into identifiable bundles.

conformance scope

A set of Views and/or Pages selected to be part of a conformance claim. Where a View or Page is part of a Process, all the Views or Pages in the process must be included.

How a person or organization selects the set is not defined in WCAG3. There maybe informative guidance on selecting a suitable set in future (similar to WCAG-EM), but regional laws or regulations may provide a methodology.

content

information, sensory experience and interactions conveyed

interactive element

element that responds to user input and has a distinct programmatically determinable name

In contrast to non-interactive elements. For example, headings or paragraphs.

keyboard focus

point in the content where any keyboard actions would take effect

mechanism

process or technique for achieving a result

The mechanism may be explicitly provided in the content, or may be relied upon to be provided by either the platform or by user agents, including assistive technologies.

The mechanism needs to meet all requirements for the conformance level claimed.

non-interactive element

element that does not respond to user input and does not include sub-parts

If a paragraph included a link, the text either side of the link would be considered a static element, but not the paragraph as a whole.

Letters within text do not constitute a “smaller part”.

page

non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI using HTTP plus any other resources that are used in the rendering or intended to be rendered together

Where a URI is available and represents a unique set of content, that would be the preferred conformance unit.

platform

software, or collection of layers of software, that lies below the subject software and provides services to the subject software and that allows the subject software to be isolated from the hardware, drivers, and other software below

Platform software both makes it easier for subject software to run on different hardware, and provides the subject software with many services (e.g. functions, utilities, libraries) that make the subject software easier to write, keep updated, and work more uniformly with other subject software.

A particular software component might play the role of a platform in some situations and a client in others. For example a browser is a platform for the content of the page but it also relies on the operating system below it.

The platform is the context in which the conformance scope exists.

pointer

a hardware-agnostic representation of input devices that can target a specific coordinate (or set of coordinates) on a screen, such as a mouse, pen, or touch contact

process

series of views or pages associated with user actions, where actions required to complete an activity are performed, often in a certain order, regardless of the technologies used or whether it spans different sites or domains

programmatically determinable

meaning of the content and all its important attributes can be determined by software functionality that is accessibility supported

requirement

result of practices that reduce or eliminate barriers that people with disabilities experience

user agent

any software that retrieves and presents web content for users

view

content that is actively available in a viewport including that which can be scrolled or panned to, and any additional content that is included by expansion while leaving the rest of the content in the viewport actively available

A modal dialog box would constitute a new view because the other content in the viewport is no longer actively available.

viewport

object in which the platform presents content

The author has no control of the viewport and almost always has no idea what is presented in a viewport (e.g. what is on screen) because it is provided by the platform. On browsers the hardware platform is isolated from the content.

Content can be presented through one or more viewports. Viewports include windows, frames, loudspeakers, and virtual magnifying glasses. A viewport may contain another viewport. For example, nested frames. Interface components created by the user agent such as prompts, menus, and alerts are not viewports.