- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2009 23:53:01 +0000 (UTC)
- To: John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>
- Cc: 'HTML Accessibility Task Force' <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
On Tue, 1 Dec 2009, John Foliot wrote: > > I have to side with Matt here - Ian's statement of fact is not based on > any publicly available data; he simply says that we must trust him on it. That's an outright lie, I've documented much of the data on which my statements are based in this e-mail from earlier this year: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jul/0148.html > Sorry, no can do. Ian is entitled to his *opinion* here, but the > specification cannot hinge on only one man's opinion. I strongly agree that we should use data instead of opinions. That's why I've backed up all my statements with data. The data supports dropping summary="". > As a corollary to Ian's statement however, having the value of what > would normally be considered the @summary content visible 'in the clear' > on pages with complex tables might also cause harm to some users - > specifically those with cognitive impairments - as you then are dealing > with an overload of information which could leave some users confused or > unsure of the data they are consuming. Thus the argument for placing > this information in the clear is as fraught with potential harm as not > doing so. To clarify, you are arguing that explaining complicated information to users who have trouble understanding complicated information will lead to them undestanding the information _less_ than if that information was not explained to them? Can you, as Matt asked me to do and as you agreed with him I should do, back this up? > In this case, I have, on numerous occasions across the years, asked Ian > for a list of *any* accessibility specialist or advocate with whom he > has previously consulted, and have never received a reply. I refuse to drag other people into these discussions. Opinions, as you pointed out, don't matter anyway. As you implied, we should base our recommendations on data, not opinions. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Tuesday, 1 December 2009 23:53:33 UTC