[csswg-drafts] [mediaqueries-4] Interaction Media Features make a rigid primary/"rare" distinction

patrickhlauke has just created a new issue for 
https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts:

== [mediaqueries-4] Interaction Media Features make a rigid 
primary/"rare" distinction ==
The section on Interaction Media Features 
https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#mf-interaction makes, 
throughout its description text, a hard distinction between the 
"primary" input and other input types, even going as far as labelling 
the others as "rare".

As pointed out previously (e.g. in this article 
https://dev.opera.com/articles/media-features/ - which needs updating 
due to the removal of `on-demand`), fundamentally this hard 
distinction is becoming much more blurry nowadays.

For instance, on a touch-enabled laptop, or one of those new Surface 
Studio desktop devices, what is the *primary* input? I know the idea 
is that the OS/UA will make that call, but by virtue of even having 
that distinction in the spec, you're discounting the increasing 
possibility that devices have multiple equi-potent input modalities. 
There may well be more than one "primary" input, and labelling 
anything other than whatever the OS/UA decides is "primary" as being 
"rare" is an inappropriate qualitative statement in the spec.

At the very least, I would like to see language such as "rare" being 
amended/removed. Call it "secondary", at a stretch, and possibly 
include stronger advice that the `any-*` results should be treated not
 as some courtesy

> some extra conveniences or non essential controls can be offered to 
users who have additional ways to interact.

because if a user does rely on whatever the OS/UA deems as 
"rare"/"secondary", then it's not just about being "nice" to the 
user...if you rely on things like hovering or high pointing precision,
 you ARE going to stop users from being able to use your site/app if 
you only concentrate on the "primary".

More fundamentally, I'd actually love to see the concept of "primary" 
input go away altogether as it's increasingly inappropriate in 
multi-input environments, but I take it that'd be a step too far? 


Please view or discuss this issue at 
https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/690 using your GitHub 
account

Received on Monday, 7 November 2016 12:06:54 UTC