RE: Discriminatory Convensions and Aesthetics

Usage as footnotes aside, superscripts and subscripts within scientific and mathematical notations obviously carry much more than aesthetic meaning.  In MathML, a link can be added to almost any variable or expression, and this can provide important accessibility to quickly find meanings or alternate explanations.

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Gregg C Vanderheiden [mailto:greggvan@umd.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 9:52 AM
To: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
Cc: w3c-waI-gl@w3. org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Discriminatory Convensions and Aesthetics

+1

Gregg C Vanderheiden
greggvan@umd.edu



> On Mar 15, 2017, at 7:09 AM, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> On 14/03/2017 21:09, Wayne Dick wrote:
> 
>> There are many discriminatory aesthetic conversions on the web, and 
>> in its predecessor, print. Are small subscripts and superscripts 
>> useful or necessary, or are they just conversion, habit? Publishers 
>> who wanted to save paper probably found that books would sell just as 
>> well if sub/super scripts were reduced in size. That probably saved 
>> paper by enabling less line separation. Does this conversion really 
>> make sense on a flexible medium like web content, or is it discriminatory habit?
> 
> I would say that these sorts of elements also convey a visual sense of hierarchy / importance - de-emphasising certain ancilliary aspects (like references to a footnote) to make them less visually obtrusive when reading the actual text.
> 
>> I  think that the clear active elements SC addresses one of these 
>> discriminatory aesthetics. When a super / sub script is a link it is 
>> something completely different than anything that ever existed on paper.
>> It is a super script character and a link - a paper impossibility. 
>> Why do we use paper conversions for this important extension of paper 
>> capability? I think the answer is habit.
> 
> Habit, which also means familiarity for users, who are likely acquainted with that particular convention from print and may therefore recognise its meaning even in a different / digital context.
> 
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
> 
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Received on Wednesday, 15 March 2017 15:24:17 UTC