IBM Comments to November 19, 2004 Public Draft of CSS Techniques

IBM Comments to November 19, 2004 Public Draft of CSS Techniques

5.5 Creating Invisible labels for form elements - new technique
Suggest combining the 2 examples into one, but it is good to see both 
coding examples (display:hidden vs the position CSS method).  Consider 
shortening the second example - it  is unnecessarily long with the 12 
options when 3 would show the technique.
In addition to showing the code, show the actual example as it looks on 
the Web page.

6.3 Use style sheets to change list bullets  - new technique  (actually, 
moved from HTML Techniques document)
This technique needs more investigation and perhaps expansion to include 
information about alphabetical lists.  Have seen  problems when someone 
has used CSS to define an alpha list.  While it LOOKS like an alpha list, 
most AT doesn't read it as an alpha list.  Screen readers do not interpret 
CSS, so the alpha style is ignored.  Someone using a screen reader will 
respond incorrectly because they hear the wrong options. A list is coded 
as:  <ol class="alphalist"> should be coded using the <type> attribute so 
it will be identified as a list to assistive technology:   <ol type="a">

7.1 Specifying colors by keyword or hex value  - updated
 Understand the issue of using color for meaning, have questions about how 
this example relates to accessibility.

9.2 Make raster image text accessible with CSS - new technique
Need to make it more clear why you would use this technique  vs. just 
having alt text for the image that is always there whether CSS is turned 
on or not.

9.7 Underlining, overlining, and blinking  - updated with user agent 
support for text-decoration:blink
Suggestion to just recommend NOT to use blink - although it is used 
extensively on many sites for visual effect so should show people how to 
do it correctly.   It is at least better to have blinking that can be 
disabled than blinking that cannot be disabled.  However, if the blinking 
is in the range that could trigger a seizure, it should never be used. A 
page that loads with blinking on puts a burden on the user being 
sophisticated enough to know how to disable the blinking BEFORE it causes 
then a serious problem.  Perhaps make the example more clear that no 
blinking should be the default or that blinking should ONLY be used when 
the author knows it is in the correct range NOT to cause a problem. 

13.1 Absolute positioning based on structural markup - renamed and 
modified
Editorial correction:   In the example text.  Change "... in a browser 
that support..." to "... in a browser that supports...".