1731644 - Accessibility (view) problems with the Proton theme

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox :: Disability Access, defect)

Description

[Underpass]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:93.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/93.0

Steps to reproduce:

Hello.
On the Italian Support Forum one user has complained an accessibility problem.

After upgrading to version 89, the introduction of the Proton theme has been causing problems to his view. Maybe it's worth saying that this person suffers from optic nerve problems, also evident in the optical laser tomography (OCT).

Actual results:

In particular, the main problem is caused the huge line spacing in the bookmarks menu and the new colors of the theme.
Now by now, thanks to many Italian volunteers, we did manage to alleviate the problem providing him a suitable userchrome.css (see attachment). But after version 89, the code needed to be readapted to version 90, 91, and 92, and we fear that this could happen again for all subsequent versions.

Expected results:

While the ideal solution would be the reverting of the Proton theme, I see some more feasible solutions, for example:

• Relase the old (black) color scheme as an addon.
• Reconsider at least the line spacing value or provide a solution to change it easily with a preference in about:config.

This latter setting could be useful to MANY people (many users have asked us how to revert the value and we had to provide userchrome.css code for them).

I hope I have been clear.
Thanks for your attention.

Comment 1

[Underpass]

Attachment: Rename the TXT as CSS

Comment 2

[Underpass]

Attachment: Theme without userchrome.css optimization

Comment 3

[Underpass]

Attachment: Theme after userchrome.css optimization

Comment 4

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It sounds like there are two issues here.

1. About line spacing, we are consolidating that issue to bug 1722368. I responded to a user with accessibility concerns in duplicate bug 1729761, comment #10. If you are looking for workarounds you may want to check out changing browser.uidensity in about:config to 1. Again this is unsupported and will break (just like userChrome.css).
2. What are the specific color issues the user is experiencing?

Thank you again.

Comment 5

[Underpass]

Thanks for your answer.

1. Thanks for the tip but how can I suggest to use the browser.uidensity parameter if - as you said - this is going to be retired?

2. The colors are not enough contrasted and this causes eye fatigue (sorry, don't know if it's the right expression but I hope I have been clear enough). The user tells me that he has been a Firefox user since 2005 and this didn't happened until the switch to Proton theme. He has tried to use also some of the black themes available from the Addons website but he couldn't solve.
   The problem is not present in Firefox ESR or Tor Browser or Waterfox.
   Again, I dare to suggest you to release this color combination as a (maintained) addon.

Thanks.

Comment 6

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:asa, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 7

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

(In reply to Underpass from comment #5)

2. The colors are not enough contrasted

We are certainly aware of colour contrast problems concerning the tab strip. That is being addressed in bug 1704347. Could you provide details regarding other areas where the user is experiencing contrast issues? Thanks.

Comment 8

[Underpass]

Hello, I've asked the user. He tells me that the problems are the two that I've described earlier (i.e. the tab strip and the line spacing of the interface) and also the bookmark folder icons that are not distinguishable and in fact he uses the old Firefox 56 bookmark folder icons.

Also, I've not well understood what you (as Mozilla) are deciding about the contrast problems in the tab strip.
Thanks.

Comment 9

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Clear a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user.

Inactive users most likely will not respond; if the missing information is essential and cannot be collected another way, the bug maybe should be closed as INCOMPLETE.

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.