hey Laura, I'm not seeing very many contrast errors from the a11y developer tools extension (when I run an Audit).

Here's some screen shots from ubuntu. 


This may be a sidebar (may be unrelated to what lpalmaro@ is saying), but:

There appears to be two different focus ripple colors used (for the menu icon and the search icon when the window is small). Alan would like them both to be the same and is choosing the lighter focus color (like the search icon).

lpalmaro@, is the lighter color focus look better than the darker one?


On the search entry:
There doesn't appear to be any focus I see other than the text cursor blinking.

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lpalmaro@, another question: Is the initial bug report using a wide window, where the search is shown as a text bar; or, using a narrow window where the search is shown as an icon (until it is expanded)?

Oh, there's also an icon to clear the search within the search input.

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The CL at https://codereview.chromium.org/2778463003/
will make the focus highlight a consistent, lighter (white) highlight for all the icons mentioned above. They will all be like the search icon was previously.
This will also change the chrome://history (and other) page which had similar issues (it is the same code for the toolbar).

That CL doesn't change how the search text field focus is shown. Whether or how that will change is still TBD (hoping for input from lpalmaro and bettes@).

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/f644b85dd6827427131f3b227d96e9c3b1ca9815

commit f644b85dd6827427131f3b227d96e9c3b1ca9815
Author: dschuyler <dschuyler@chromium.org>
Date: Wed Mar 29 19:37:21 2017

[cr elements] icon buttons under toolbar have white focus circle

This CL makes the paper icon button focus ripples (disc) consistent.
Before this CL, the menu icon and clear search icon had a different
focus color than the search icon, for example. Alan wants them to all
have a white focus highlight.
This is a step toward fixing the bug (not a complete fix).

BUG=693383
CQ_INCLUDE_TRYBOTS=master.tryserver.chromium.linux:closure_compilation

Review-Url: https://codereview.chromium.org/2778463003
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#460493}

[modify] https://crrev.com/f644b85dd6827427131f3b227d96e9c3b1ca9815/ui/webui/resources/cr_elements/cr_toolbar/cr_toolbar.html
[modify] https://crrev.com/f644b85dd6827427131f3b227d96e9c3b1ca9815/ui/webui/resources/cr_elements/cr_toolbar/cr_toolbar_search_field.html

Alan, what do you think of showing the focus disc on the search icon when the search field is focused?

[Other wild ideas: change the color of the search field on focus; outline the edit field; underline the edit text in white (akin to how a text field would normally get a blue underline)]

Or do you prefer it as-is?

Please change Owner back to me with a choice.

fwiw: bettes@ looked at the colors of "Search settings" and the background of the search box and found them to be 4.7:1 contrast ratio (which means a11y standards).

and the focus ripples are now white on canary, which look better.

is there anything else to do here?

Thanks for working through this. The white focus ripple helps a bit on the menu button and on the search icon when it's a smaller window. FWIW, it's still hard for me to see it as a low vision user, but it's better than before. When I then press tab again to place focus in the search field (in a wide window), I can't see any focus style except for the flashing caret. The caret is a good indication, but could we consider making the icon to the left of the search field slightly brighter white/bolder when focus is there? Or add a simple white shadow below or around the text entry field? This isn't too bad - I'm just brainstorming ways to make it better and more usable. 

Also, when I enter text and then tab to the clear button, the focus is pretty hard to see. Is that the same white focus style or is it different? Could we make that slightly stronger contrast? 

happy to land an easy fix if we come to consensus with design (bettes@) but removing beta blocker if it's "better than before" and "this isn't too bad".

Thanks for the feedback Laura! 

>> Is that the same white focus style or is it different?

It should be the same focus style we use across webUI toolbars, yes.

>> could we consider making the icon to the left of the search field slightly brighter white/bolder when focus is there?

We go half-way there by highlighting the icon upon click-focus, but because the search box is focused on page load for all webUI pages, I'm worried that decorating the toolbar any further would be a distraction to the contents of the page.  

This reproduces in Windows so adding to the Windows hotlist. 

Google Chrome	66.0.3359.27 (Official Build) dev (64-bit) (cohort: PGO)
Windows 10 Enterprise Version 1607
Steps: go to chrome://settings
Use shift + tab to put focus on the menu
Observe the blue circle that appears around the three lines menu button

Foreground:#527EDC
Background:#3367D6
The contrast ratio is: 1.3:1