Test wiki on Patch demo using patch(es) linked to this task was deleted:

Another aspect that I wonder if worth considering if how much we want to look forward to updates to the WCAG in the proposed changes to colour contrast accessibility calculations proposed in future in a new "APCA algorithm (Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm)". It seems far off implementation, but worthwhile noting some of the inadequacies in the current calculation that it is intended to address.

I've reanalysed the feedback, to quantify the accessibility problem, classifying it in 4 categories (new, no objection to new, old, neither). I classified 135 responses, but have skipped some of those where there was a language barrier / machine translation didn't help me. The question was slightly steering the respondents to support. I think that is the correct way to deal with accessibility problems, as we're trying to solve a problem for a minority of editors, but that should be taken into account now that it has become clear the new colours also pose an accessibility problem.

JFYI: the study’s point on avoiding descender elements of q/p/j is outdated by now, all modern browsers already do that for underlined links.

I very much agree that normal underlining (same colour, normal width, directly under words) would not work for Wikipedia. The study linked gives two reasons why readability is negatively impacted by that type of underlining

Underlining all links by default is not a good usability choice for Wikipedia, and there is a reason why most sites with a high density of links (like Google search results pages) have moved away from underlining by default for all users. There is solid evidence that when there is a high density of links, underlining negatively impacts readability.

In T213778#8218136, @alexhollender_WMF wrote:

@ppelberg @nayoub @Esanders: it seems that on Talk pages, in both Legacy Vector and Vector 2022, the [ reply ] and [ unsubscribe ] links/buttons are able to get :visited styling. I never noticed this until recently, when we made the :visited styling more distinct from the normal link styling. I wonder whether or not it makes sense for these links/buttons to be able to get :visited styling (my initial thought is that it doesn't make sense)? What do you all think? And if you agree that it doesn't make sense, should we prioritize changing this? I believe this will no longer be an issue with the updated Talk pages, since they use buttons instead of links for Reply and Unsubscribe, though I don't know how soon that will be rolled out everywhere.

Thanks, filed as T319019

In T213778#8274592, @Volker_E wrote:

We're supporting to always underline links in user preferences underneath “Appearance” as MediaWiki feature.

Apologies for not being clear. Has underlining been considered as a default to allow the use of darker colours, and resolve the two accessibility problems above? I hope you agree with me that these do pose a problem, and that 4.5:1 contrast (or 5:1) is not a guarantee for sufficient contrast (as WebIAM says: "For many of us, some of these combinations are not very readable. That is why 4.5:1 is the minimum required by WCAG.." )

We're supporting to always underline links in user preferences underneath “Appearance” as MediaWiki feature.

Has underlining been considered? The new colours still pose two accessibility problems

1. It's too light for about 10% of people. Many people who indicate it's too light indicate an accessibility issue (difficult to read) rather than aesthetics.
2. For people that are colour blind, the contrast between visited links and unvisited links may not be clear (see for instance Iritscen's feedback).

Change 622763 abandoned by VolkerE:

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@master] [modern][styles] Use default Design Style Guide link color choice

Reason:

Superseded by I8a309eedd70b9a82f

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/622763

In T213778#8210178, @Femkemilene wrote:

I prefer consistency as well. I think the visited link colour on the watchlist/main menu/contributions wouldn't be that annoying if the purple colour is closer to meeting the WGAC AAA standard (or even meets it, but there is only one colour that meets both accessibiilty requirements).
I suggested the two colours that fit with the criteria ((#3344dd for blue, and #804180 for purple)). If the blue is a given, #6550A5 may be a prettier option for the purple. It almost meets the AAA standard on a white background and comfortably meets the AA standard on a lightgrey background, which is common across the site. Happy to test if it still poses me trouble if somebody could explain how.

(Technical note: it’s because they use href="", so all the ‘links’ reference the current page.)

@ppelberg @nayoub @Esanders: it seems that on Talk pages, in both Legacy Vector and Vector 2022, the [ reply ] and [ unsubscribe ] links/buttons are able to get :visited styling. I never noticed this until recently, when we made the :visited styling more distinct from the normal link styling. I wonder whether or not it makes sense for these links/buttons to be able to get :visited styling (my initial thought is that it doesn't make sense)? What do you all think? And if you agree that it doesn't make sense, should we prioritize changing this? I believe this will no longer be an issue with the updated Talk pages, since they use buttons instead of links for Reply and Unsubscribe, though I don't know how soon that will be rolled out everywhere.

I prefer consistency as well. I think the visited link colour on the watchlist/main menu/contributions wouldn't be that annoying if the purple colour is closer to meeting the WGAC AAA standard (or even meets it, but there is only one colour that meets both accessibiilty requirements).
I suggested the two colours that fit with the criteria ((#3344dd for blue, and #804180 for purple)). If the blue is a given, #6550A5 may be a prettier option for the purple. It almost meets the AAA standard on a white background and comfortably meets the AA standard on a lightgrey background, which is common across the site. Happy to test if it still poses me trouble if somebody could explain how.

Tacsipacsi is correct. I also pointed out in the discussion what they say about per-page inconsistency also being potentially confusing. I personally find it useless/annoying to have the purple visited style on my watchlist and contributions page but others could feel differently. I leave it up to the team to decide how to approach it—the largest audience here is readers, who generally can’t customize the style for themselves as easily as an editor/logged in user, so I think optimizing for them and giving editors tools to customize to their preferred needs is probably fine.

In T213778#8209079, @alexhollender_WMF wrote:

• @stevenwalling has pointed out that all links on Watchlist and Contributions pages have visited link styling (because any page that appears there is a page you've visited). This raises the question of whether it makes sense to use visited link styling on these pages or not. There might be other places, such as the User menu and/or Main menu, where visited link styling is more distracting than helpful as well. (link to discussion)

@Jdlrobson @ovasileva @Volker_E additional questions related to link styling:

• I just noticed that the visited link styling is also getting applied to the [ reply ] buttons on Talk pages. As far as I can tell this was previously happening (in Legacy Vector) but was less noticeable because the visited link styling was so similar to the normal link styling. It might not matter much for [ reply ] because the Editing team is switching that to a button, however it makes me wonder if there are other link/buttons out there that are also getting visited link styling, but shouldn't be? This is more or less the same issue we're addressing in T316574: [regression] [Visual refinements] Toolbar tabs should not get :visited styling
• @stevenwalling has pointed out that all many links on Watchlist and Contributions pages have visited link styling (because any page that appears there is a page you've visited). This raises the question of whether it makes sense to use visited link styling on these pages or not. There might be other places, such as the User menu and/or Main menu, where visited link styling is more distracting than helpful as well. (link to discussion)

Resolving this. Will follow-up with T316574: [regression] [Visual refinements] Toolbar tabs should not get :visited styling

For completeness, it looks like that's a regression caused by T308344 (so unrelated to this change). Seems like we can move this to sign off now?

follow-up tracked here T316574: [regression] [Visual refinements] Toolbar tabs should not get :visited styling

on MediaWiki I'm seeing the tabs taking on visited link colors which I don't believe is intended/expected:

here is what I'm seeing in production:

Unfortunately, the new link colors (especially for a:visited) in Vector 2022 are much to light on my screen; the readability is seriously impaired. Please provide a way to choose darker colors! The coding of a link color seems hard to override without using "!important", and without adversely affecting other link colors.

Confirming! Thank you @Ladsgroup !

@Jdlrobson Amir has deployed the change. Can you confirm the colors are all appropriate now and if so remove the train blocker? Thanks ;)

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2022-08-24T16:51:30Z] <ladsgroup@deploy1002> Synchronized php-1.39.0-wmf.26/skins/Vector/resources/mediawiki.less.legacy/mediawiki.skin.variables.less: Backport: [[gerrit:826250|Vector legacy no longer imports variables from Vector modern (T213778)]] (duration: 02m 52s)

Change 826250 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/skins/Vector@wmf/1.39.0-wmf.26] Vector legacy no longer imports variables from Vector modern

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/826250