Re: Proposal to address issue of scope of guideline 11

Hmm. I think we should take a step back to look at this.

Using style sheets is an HTML-specific techique for "Use methods which can
be over-ridden by the user to control presentation". It is, in fact,
probably a P1 requirement, although it needs the qualification of guideline 6
- Transform gracefully. And Lo, I looked there and found 6.1 ensure pages are
usable without style sheets... This becomes a question of what features can
be controlled by user agents - in other words, it says when there are good
enough user agents, feel free to use anything you can think of.

In 11.1 and 11.2 we are saying "use the latest supported W3C technologies and
recommendations when they are applicable". I think that this is P3 as a
general principle, although there are specific examples where the priority
is higher. We should ensure that this is drawn out.

The question of whether it is OK to use PDF is an interesting one. As well as
the availability of equivalent alternatives for medium specific
representations such as images, it really depends on the availability of User
Agents as to whether it is accessible or not. Is that in our scope?

An alternative approach is to include it in the list of things for which
accessible alternatives are needed - checkpoint 1.1

Just some thoughts.

Charles McCN


On Thu, 10 Jun 1999, Ian Jacobs wrote:

  Hello,
  
  Web Content Guidelines Issue 10 (refer to [1]) concerns the use of 
  deprecated features of HTML vs. use of CSS for style (e.g.,
  borders around images).
  
  Although we want the guidelines to send the message "use style sheets", 
  they must also take into account the current support for CSS. There
  have been some questions on the list about how to satisfy
  the following checkpoints at the same time:
  
   - 3.3 Use style sheets to control layout and presentation. [Priority 2] 
  
   - 11.1 Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate
          for a task and use the latest versions when supported. [Priority
  2] 
  
   - 11.2 Avoid deprecated features of W3C technologies. [Priority 2] 
  
  I propose the following changes to improve the situation:
  
   a) Change wording of 3.3 to say "Use style sheets to control
      layout and presentation when supported by user agents."
  
   b) Change priority of 11.2 to 3
  
   c) Change wording of 11.2 to read "Avoid deprecated features of
      W3C technologies. Note: Authors should stop using deprecated
      features when they are supported by by other technologies such
      as style sheets."
  
  - Ian
  
  [1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wai-gl-issues.html#g11
  -- 
  Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
  Tel/Fax:                     (212) 684-1814
  

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Sunday, 13 June 1999 20:10:49 UTC