Talk:Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Archive1

font-size 1em

originally posted on Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements

Hi

Thanks a lot for your work!

Comparing vector-2022 with minerva I think vector-2022 is much more mature and better. But there are some details in minerva which I prefer. Most of all the font and font size of the text.

So: Why not to change font-size in .vector-body to 1em (or 100%)?

I think that would be a uge improvement in readability and look. Even headings would still be fine with the current size.

But I have not tested it in different devices, browsers, screens etc. so maybe there is a reason why the font size is reduced in default vector-2022? Bwana.elias (talk) 14:58, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Bwana.elias. It's interesting that you reach out to us about this now! I'd like to encourage you to read the project page this very talk page is connected to. On it, we explain why and what we would like to change. (Spoiler alert, it's not just about font size, but also information density, so for example line height!) SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:23, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi @SGrabarczuk (WMF) thanks for pointing me here. Sorry, I have just registered at wikipedia/mediawiki for the first time and thougt I start discussing immediately :)) Will have a look at the project page. BR Bwana.elias (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

"Share my preferences"

A question about translation: This text mentions the possibility to click the "share my preferences" button. Where is the label of this buttion translated? Amir E. Aharoni {{🌎🌍🌏}} 14:56, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Amire80, it's in the translatable, although hidden, part of Reading/Web/Accessibility for reading/Community prototype testing. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 15:01, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

How do I close the "Wikimedia reading tool" window?

I just wanted to have a look at this when I saw the banner in en.Wikipedia. Now I cannot close the window, because there is no "cancel" option. A look at "Preferences" did not help either. There must be a way to cancel the survey and to close the window! Kallichore (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I have the same problem. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:25, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Me too! I was happy to try it, but I would really appreciate being able to remove it! Lajmmoore (talk) 13:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Kallichore, Jc3s5h, and Lajmmoore: thanks for reaching out to us :) In the widget, right above the buttons, there's a sentence "Click here to remove this tool." In addition to that, soon we'll disable this tool on English Wikipedia because we have plenty of replies already. I hope this helps! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:00, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, the button worked for me. --Kallichore (talk) 18:09, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Why not add customizable appearance?

In the text it says "In particular, we're not planning on providing sliders or individual settings for font size, line height, or spacing.", and I just can't help but wonder why? Wouldn't this benefit people who would want to customize it to their needs? Projects like wikiwand do it and it works pretty well for them, so I can't see the reason why not. But other than that Vector 2022 is awesome, thank you for the work you do. WanderingMorpheme (talk) 22:21, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello @WanderingMorpheme! I'm sorry for not answering earlier! At first, I wasn't 100% sure how to answer, and it took me too long to ask my colleagues. I'm embarrassed because it's a very good and a very basic question 🤦

So the answer is:

We will change the default to improve the basic state of things. We will add some customizations for people to adjust the text to their needs. But there's a limit. By introducing options, we're adding permutations, and we should be careful about those.

(Just in case anyone reading this is not familiar with the term, a permutation is a specific arrangement of options. If there are three font sizes, three font families, and three colors for each, there are "all of the sudden" 27 permutations.)

We have adjustable interface with lots of possible permutations already. Everything we do, we need to test against all the permutations we're responsible for. Adding too many options to choose between results in, for example: 1. difficulty of maintaining what already exists, 2. reluctance to add more features. So it's a matter of some balance, how many great permutations do we really want to be responsible for.

I hope this helps! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

This was a great answer, thank you. WanderingMorpheme (talk) 02:14, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Dark mode setting retrieved from system

Hello,

I red this article https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/11/24/dark-mode-is-coming/ and I would just like to mention that I would like an automatic dark mode if the user’s operating system is configured on dark mode. So it would automatically follow the system’s setting.

This way, any logged-out user would have a setting that would most probably be his/her best choice. Having to log-in or even worse create an account to set a dark mode is not satisfying in my opinion.

In the article, a "toggle" is mentioned but I would prefer an automatic setting without user action. Therefore, no "white flash" would be displayed at the loading of a web page.

I think technically it would use this but I am not an expert: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@media/prefers-color-scheme

Thanks a lot

Sensas817 (talk) 19:03, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

"Night mode" is a poor choice

I saw someone say this somewhere else, and I wholeheartedly agree. I associate "night mode" with the ability to adjust the hue to warmer colors and reduce blue light (whose efficacy in reducing eye strain is disputed but which Android/macOS/iOS/Windows nonetheless provide). What you're building is a dark mode. Calling it a night mode is at best ambiguous and confusing. Nardog (talk) 00:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF): Where/how was the decision to use "night mode" in lieu of "dark mode" made? What is the rationale? Nardog (talk) 13:25, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi there,

Thanks so much for your feedback. I agree that using the label "Night mode" would create some confusion with "night shift"-style colour shifting features in other programs. The actual term "night mode" is only something that we're using in project documentation. Those words don't appear anywhere in the UI that we're working on, as you can see in this Phabricator ticket for implementing the appearance settings interface copy. We call it "Color: Night/Day" in the interface.

The reason we chose Night/Day instead of Dark/Light was primarily for translation reasons. Based on languages spoken on the team, Night/Day is more translatable and has fewer potentially problematic value connotations that we were aware of. I hope that helps to clarify the rationale behind the decision. Thanks again for your feedback! JScherer-WMF (talk) 22:30, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Color vs. colour

It's interesting to see "colour" in the new theme menu prototype. It'd be cool if it followed w:Template:Use British English or other English varieties templates. Or maybe better to just find another word that sidesteps the issue. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:54, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Sdkb! Thanks, this spelling may indeed be confusing. I doubt it will make it on production, though. The reason why it is in the prototype in the first place is because our designer is based in Canada :) But the spelling on prod seems to be AmE. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Wonderful update!

For years, I've been using the Chrome browser zoom feature at 150% or so, in order to comfortably read content on Wikimedia sites. Now that you've added the built-in accessibility features for text size and page width, I am able to reset Browser Zoom to 100% default, and the native tool works God's miracles! Hooray! Elizium23 (talk) 00:44, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Cog

I like the old "Cog in the bottom right" design much better, especially when logged out and unpinned, where this looks quite jarring. Is there a way to combine the two designs, like make a cog styled like the width toggle in the lower-right that brings up this menu which can be pinned, plus the width section is disabled with a relevant help message when it wouldn't do anything? Aaron Liu (talk) 22:01, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Unfurl all links

also New Vector sucks for screenreaders. However, there's a beta feature for New Vector called Accessibility for Reading. Right now it is really basic, but I really wish that an option to display all links will be available there.

— @CactiStaccingCrane, Reply to @Moxy

Aaron Liu (talk) 14:24, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for putting my comment here :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:25, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Pure-black dark mode

Very excited to see that dark mode will be coming eventually - I read about it in the enwiki Signpost today. One concern, however: Too many dark modes on websites use pure black as the background colour. This also causes eyestrain and personally causes headaches, especially with pure white text on top. One solution could be to have two different dark modes, one with pure black and one with a shade of dark gray - that then accomodates those who prefer the pure black. Suntooooth (talk) 21:32, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Suntooooth, thank you for your comment. I haven't talked about this with the team, but I guess you're very right and this is a known issue. I believe the plan is to use some very dark color, most likely from an existing palette, but not   black. Anyway, I've let Justin, our designer, know that you've raised this point. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 18:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Pure black has theoretical advantages for OLED and other emissive displays where black pixels draw little power, if any. But I agree with Suntooooth that it can look harsh. I think you should offer both. The Wikipedia iOS app has white, sepia, and two blacks. As does Reading Mode in iOS Safari. – Pelagic (talk) 22:03, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback @Suntooooth! We do not intend to use #000000 as the dark background in the new Night colour palette. I agree that it's harsh and results in a poorer reading experience. JScherer-WMF (talk) 20:40, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

TOC numbering

Some might want this to also be able to add section numbers to the TOC.. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:44, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T307316

Thanks @Aaron Liu. Do I understand correctly that you're pointing at the known request for a change in the TOC in Vector 2022? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:50, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

As a person who doesn't like TOC numbering, I'm saying that a toggle for it could be added in Accessibility for reading. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:54, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Font size not working in Chinese/Japanese wikipedia

Tried this feature, but found that the font size adjustment doesn't work in Chinese wikipedia. This is because the font size of Chinese wikipedia is designated as 15px, and the designation has higher priority than the font size adjustment.

I think the default 15px of Chinese wikipedia is an optimization for hanzi, so I checked Japanese wikipedia which also uses kanji (=hanzi). It turns out, the same applies to Japanese, the default font size is also 15px, and font size adjustment doesn't work as well. Tcbbd (talk) 16:08, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Tcbbd for this message, I'll let my team mates know! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@SGrabarczuk (WMF) and Tcbbd: Hello, the reason why it is not working is because of the conflict between the default gadget "大字體 (large font)", which increase the font size, and the beta feature. You can disable this gadget in your preference. I will pass this issue to Chinese Wikipedia community. Thanks. SCP-2000 (talk) 17:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Line height in Larger size (iPad)

First thing I noticed after turning on the beta is that Larger size feels very dense on an iPad.

Haven't yet tried it on other platforms to find out if this is the general issue that Nclm posted above, or if it's more pronounced on the tablet because of V2022's lack of responsive scaling.

I agree that there should be less relative leading at larger point sizes; the current Larger needs just a little more.

Perhaps there could be a separate selection for tight / medium / loose.

– Pelagic (talk) 21:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

On desktop Large doesn't seem tight, just really big. Also on tablet, setting the reading size to larger doesn't help with font size in the classic wikitext editor. Pelagic (talk) 09:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback here @Pelagic! You're not the only one who has been giving feedback along these lines. As I mentioned above in the conversation with @Nclm, I've refactored the designs to have more breathing room going forward. Keep an eye on the phab tickets and please try it out again on your iPad when they've been released (should be next week or the week after). I'd love to hear what you think of the refactored designs. Thanks again! JScherer-WMF (talk) 13:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Line height

Testing now the version on the French Wikipedia. Great feature, thanks!

For the font size option however, the line height for “standard” and “large” is far too tight. I would love to set it to “standard” for my own use, but the readability is affected by that low leading, so I switched back to “small”.

By the way, there is a major translation mistake for the “type size” label (“type” translated as if to mean “a kind”, not as “typography”). I fixed it, I think, on TranslateWiki (not sure it is the right place for that), but I don’t know when it will be updated on the live wiki? Nclm (talk) 19:50, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

More specifically, I see it is set to 1.5 in “standard”. After trying out, I think values around 1.75 are much more pleasing typographically. Nclm (talk) 20:12, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your feedback! And thank you for catching that translation mistake! The decision to have the line-height at 1.5 was made for several reasons:

1. This is the recommended ratio that we saw in the academic literature on readability that we reviewed.
2. In the prototyping exercise we did with community members, line heights tended to get relatively denser as the font increased in size.
3. We wanted to make sure that the increased font-size wouldn't increase the height of articles too much and create a lot more scrolling for folks who are scanning for specific information.

If you're a frequent reader, any change to the typography will probably feel a bit strange at first because it's different that you're used to. That effect should also become less prominent with time.

Thanks again for your feedback and for reaching out! JScherer-WMF (talk) 22:14, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your answer!

I have now been reading in “Standard” for a couple of weeks and it is still very tight, and feels more tight than most other content I am reading online.

Line height is only one factor, and the exact design of the typeface used (and its x-height, opening of lowercase letterforms, etc) also has an effect here. Since you don’t have, I think, control on the exact font (I believe you are using the default system sans-serif), it might be that text can appear tighter on some systems than others.

If you could still consider setting it a tiny bit higher, possibly 1.6, that would already make a lot of difference already.

1.6 is for instance what Medium is using. I had a look at a few newspapers and blogs, and I see ranges between 1.5 and 1.8. Again, it depends on the type family :) I think 1.5 could work if you had control over the font and it was the right one for this leading size, but you’ll be a bit safer with something a little more generous.

It would also be interesting the consider different line heights depending on the column width: the longer the lines, the harder it is to “catch” the next line.

Nclm (talk) 10:25, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your collaboration on this. I've reviewed your feedback, as well as lots of feedback on the recent changes in Minerva along these lines. I think I over-applied the "maintain or increase density as a scanning affordance" insight from the research, and I've refactored the designs in Vector and Minerva to have more breathing room. In the case of the Large size on Vector, to your original comment, the changes are especially beneficial. So thanks again for your feedback! JScherer-WMF (talk) 13:27, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Sounds great, thank you very much! :) Nclm (talk) 19:10, 2 March 2024 (UTC)