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Posted

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The microscopic icon and an error message visible only as a tooltip are, to the best of my knowledge, neither compliant with Apple's accessibility guidelines nor Microsoft's design principles:

Key requirements

  1. Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG):

    • Error messages must be clearly visible and not rely solely on tooltips. Use persistent text near the field to indicate errors.
    • Apple HIG - Validation
  2. Microsoft Accessibility Standards:

    • Errors must be presented clearly and be easily discoverable without requiring additional interaction.
    • Error messages should be tied to the field using accessible labels or descriptions.
    • Microsoft UX Guidelines

Tooltips alone are insufficient for meeting accessibility and usability requirements in both ecosystems.

Both Apple and Microsoft emphasize that error messages should be clearly visible, easily understandable, and not rely solely on tooltips. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines recommend presenting errors prominently, such as through alerts, to ensure user attention. Similarly, Microsoft’s Design Guidelines advocate for error messages to state the issue clearly, explain the cause, and offer solutions, using dialog boxes or in-place messages for visibility. Tooltips alone fail to meet these standards as they are less noticeable and often inaccessible.Reliance on tooltips for error messages fails accessibility standards.

Relevance: From June 28, 2025, the EU Accessibility Act will require that both digital outputs and the software applications themselves, such as those developed by Affinity, comply with accessibility standards like WCAG. This means that not only must the content created with these programs be accessible, but the programs themselves must also be designed to be accessible to all users. Serif's many years of uneven programming call for a trip to the workshop for an especially thorough inspection.

I am not the target audience for these features, but we must comply with these upcoming regulations ourselves, and we already do. 

Serif, did you foolishly fill the usability specialist role you advertised internally? If so, be transparent with your customers. Continuing without proper UX expertise insults your entire user base.
 
Posted

Microsoft apps show field-level validation error messages in modal alerts which is the gold standard but Apple and Affinity don't do that. Apple apps perform a system beep and revert invalid and blank values. Older Apple apps beep without reverting values. Affinity shows invalid values in red text as you type and then reverts invalid and blank values. URL fields are a special case for Microsoft, Apple, and Affinity apps but this is how it works in general.

Did the Apple information you're quoting come from ChatGPT? I couldn't find what you stated in Apple's HIG but when I asked ChatGPT about how validation errors should be handled I got a very similar reply. When I asked ChatGPT for the source of its information it stated it was based on Apple's HIG but when I pressed it further it confessed that it was drawn from general usability principles and not from Apple's HIG.

Regardless, I do find this warning icon unusual. It appears only for a blank value, not an invalid URL since the URL isn't being validated, and I can't find anything like it elsewhere in Affinity. Affinity normally reverts a blank field to its previous value when the field loses focus. Perhaps this is something new but I don't see how it would work in dense dialogs.

Note that the warning icon is drawn on top of the go to target icon in both dark and light modes.

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Posted

Oh dear, another content change on the web - my personal bookmark wasn’t even that old. I assumed the new URL would still have the information. My bookmark pointed to:

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/foundations/design-foundations#error-handling

Well, OS guidelines aren’t the main element here anyway. Both Microsoft and Apple base their recommendations on the principles of web accessibility, so let’s take it up a level:

https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/error-identification
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/

And before anyone says "but that's for the web," yes, but WAI and WCAG are platform-agnostic. They apply broadly to software and applications with user interfaces or interactive elements. Apple's HIG often align with these principles. In short, by applying WCAG, you enhance both accessibility and usability.

Affinity should have these three internally, among other things, to ensure consistency in all aspects, big and small: A style guide, an accessibility guide and a programming guide. Affinity is then developed strictly and methodically based on these.

That dialog is not accessible at all. It’s as simple as that.

Serif, did you foolishly fill the usability specialist role you advertised internally? If so, be transparent with your customers. Continuing without proper UX expertise insults your entire user base.
 

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