Section Name, and Readability - HTML Author Guidelines - version 1.0

Re: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WD-WAI-HAG-19980123.html>

Congratulations on your [not yet] working draft.

Two comments.

1.
"Good Web Site Design Practices" is very close to the name of an
existing document, "Good Site Design Practices," by Tobias C.
Brown et al, started in November, 1997, and posted regularly to
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design. The two documents
seem to compliment each other. Maybe you would be interested in
adding authoring tips to spell check, copyright, and promote a
site correctly. You can find the history of this document at Deja
News, on Usenet now in the aforementioned group, and the current
document at:
<http://enhanced-designs.com/author.htm#STRONG>.

2.
"8pt" used in the style sheet for [Recommended] and [Required] is
almost illegible on a Macintosh. The CSS specification says,
"Absolute length units are only useful when the physical
properties of the output medium are known." [1] Please use a
relative size like 'small', and read the conclusions in my short
paper on font-size in CSS (they will tell you x-small and
xx-small are unusable as are sizes under 82-75%). [2]
Incidentally, at small sizes, Helvetica is one of the least
readable fonts on a Macintosh. Maybe not specifying font-family
would help, too.

snippet in question
-------------------
  span.rec {
       font-family : Helvetica;
       font-size : 8pt;
                   ^^^
       font-weight : bold;
       color : white;
       background : blue;
       text-transform : uppercase;
}
  span.man {
       font-family : Helvetica;
       font-size : 8pt;
                   ^^^
       font-weight : bold;
       color : white;
       background : #990000;
       text-transform : uppercase
}
  span.help {
       font-family : Helvetica;
       font-size : 8pt;
                   ^^^
       font-weight : bold;
       color : white;
       background : #666600;
       text-transform : uppercase
}

Efforts to improve accessibility might include efforts to improve
readability for sighted Web users as well [3]. I have no formal
qualifications beyond a degree in Studio Art, but if I can be of
assistance, please let me know.

[1] <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#length-units>
[2] <http://www.macvirus.com/test/font/>
[3] <http://www.macvirus.com/test/color/>

Best of luck with your project, and I hope these comments are of
some help. (My site may be closed part of the day on Monday,
January 26, while our host moves to new offices.)

--
Susan Lesch
Mac Virus
http://www.macvirus.com/

Received on Monday, 26 January 1998 08:22:04 UTC