Should scroll gradient fail Contrast (Minimum), and are there more desirable patterns? #4622
Description
There is an increase in the use of a "fade" for the last line or two of text, as a way to indicate there is more information to scroll into view. Due to user agents/operating suppressing scrollbars, it is one of the work arounds being employed by authors to indicate a user is in a scrollable area.
I'm wondering if folks regard this as a failure of Contrast (Minimum). I'm also wondering if there are techniques people would recommend in preference.
The above is a typical example. I always have scrollbars turned on on my Mac as a matter of personal opinion, so the fade effect is an additional cue for me, but out of the box, many users would encounter something more similar to this:
You can play with this example yourselves.
As the text scrolls into view, its contrast returns to normal. If the user scrolls to the bottom of the information, the final lines are at full contrast (representing the fact that there is no more text to scroll into view) but the top line is now faded to show there is text above that currently shown.
The language of Contrast (Minimum) contains no wording specific to this transitory scenario. The fading effect is intended to assist the user's understanding that more text is available. All the type is presented with full contrast as the user scrolls it into view. Another situation where one might encounter text which is temporarily not at sufficient contrast would be microanimations that cause text to fade in or out (during slide transitions on a presentation, for example).
I'd like to get input from folks on whether this trend is acceptable or advisable. I'd also like to hear about other ways to overcome the suppression of scrollbars by things outside the author's control.