Style sheet readability

All-

I wanted to get your opinions on what it really means for a page to be
readable when style sheets are disabled.   The popular notion is that
this constraint means that when a page is disabled elements that are on
the page should be visible to the user - so no black text on a black
background.   However that constraint would seem to more accurately fall
under the sufficiency of text color contrast - a priority three item not
a priority one item. 

As far as I can tell there are three broad cases when page content may
not be "readable" with style sheets disabled.  The first is when content
is generated on the client side via style sheets such as with the
'background-image', 'list-style', or 'content' properties.  The second
is when structural content is communicated with formatting properties,
such as 'border', 'border-width' and 'outline', instead of the
appropriate structural markup.   The third is when positioning
information is used in the style sheet that causes the page
linearization to be different than the visual read order of the page.
Amongst these three cases, however, is not a case that says if font
color reduces in contrast to an unreadable point than the page is
"unreadable."  Is this implicit or is a page considered readable as long
as all the content is there? 

Further it is my understanding that readability with style sheets is a
constraint to ensure that older browsers could access page content.
Basically it forms a lowest common denominator to ensure accessibility
of content -- Is this constraint still reasonable and valid given the
current state of browsers and assistive technology?  

Thanks in advance for your opinions!  If possible CC me directly on
responses so that I can keep a record.

Timothy Stephen Springer
Director of Client Services
415.975.8036
timsp@ssbtechnologies.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-d-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-d-request@w3.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 9:34 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig-d@w3.org
Subject: w3c-wai-ig-d Digest V02 #279

Received on Tuesday, 13 August 2002 15:51:29 UTC