Accessibility: WCAG violation by using "Fullscreen mode" as default in post editor

[burnuser]

After login, a new WordPress user is confronted with consistent administration screens:
A) Toolbar at the top of the screen
B) Main Navigation menu at the left side of the screen

Making basic administrative adjustments works all in this - everywhere the same - environment.

But after adding a new post or page, the common options of toolbar and Main Navigation are gone!
Panic!
Don't know how to get out of this damn post editor!
Or even Log out from WordPress!
Panic! Confusion! Frustration!

That's an really awful first (and for some users also last) experience for starting with WordPress!
(And - as an experienced WordPress trainer - I'm stating this as a many times proven fact!)
Never ever should a user interface lock anybody in a regular editor screen without common/obvious way out!
(And no, clicking on the WordPress Icon to get out there has - in my entire experience as trainer - never been discovered by a trainee without separate explanation!)

I know, the decision to set "Fullscreen mode" as default in post editor is not new, but it is never to late, to make something better!

By the way:
1.) "Collapse menu" in the sidebar gives many space => No need for "Fullscreen mode" anyway!
2.) The missing Toobar at the top in "Fullscreen mode" breaks also the workflow of viewing and adding post - or jumping to administrative functions - with one click!

And if terrible usability and user-experience is not enough to revert this (non working) change, maybe compliance with the law - like mandatory WCAG in Europe - is a sufficient incentive.

Because this unnecessary change in user-interface is a direct violation of the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines"
=> "Make Web pages appear and operate in predictable ways"
​https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#consistent-navigation

Which also makes clear, that a change to "Fullscreen mode" by the user (= own decision) is OK.

[audrasjb]

Hello and thank you for opening this ticket,

First I don't think it's a violation to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) since we're not speaking about the public interface of the website. It's probably more related to Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG).

Second, I think this issue need to be addressed on Gutenberg's side, since the code of the Editor is mostly located on Gutenberg GitHub repository: ​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/

Would you mind creating an issue over there instead?

Also, since the default full screen mode was introduced in WordPress 5.4, let's replace the Version tag with 5.4 :)

[burnuser]

Reported in Gutenberg: ​https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/47112

ATAG vs WCAG: ATAG refers to WCAG
​https://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/#conf-rel-wcag

And WordPress is not exclusive to trained programmers, but intended for "public-use" by millions of people. So I think the WCAG reference is correct in any way.

[audrasjb]

Thanks for reporting this issue upstream on Gutenberg repo @burnuser :)

Closing this as reported-upstream.