Re: content: url() is bad

On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, David Woolley wrote:
> >
> > solution. The solution to aural rendering of Web pages is media="speech"
> > and an aural CSS renderer, not media="screen" and a screen-to-voice
> > convertor.
>
> Ignoring the fact that aural has been deprecated and speech doesn't yet
> exist, that assumes a level of goodwill amongst authors that will never
> exist.

Why? Assuming pages are written using semantic markup, it doesn't matter
that authors don't write stylesheets.

I speak from experience: On mobile and embedded devices, Opera will render
using 'handheld' styles if they are available, and otherwise will analyse
the page and render it appropriately. There is rarely a need to actually
use "screen" styles when not on a "screen" media. (Admittedly, sometimes
the need exists, in which case that is what should be done, but that is
the fallback position, not the starting point.)

The point is that screen readers -- sorry, assistive technologies for
those with defective vision that use 'screen' stylesheets for non-screen
media -- are simply the wrong solution here. Web technologies have been
designed so that speech is a native first-class citizen; treating it as a
second class citizen and then complaining that it is not well supported
makes no sense.

-- 
Ian Hickson                                      )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
U+1047E                                         /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
http://index.hixie.ch/                         `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 13 April 2004 11:24:57 UTC