- From: Joshue O Connor <joshue.oconnor@cfit.ie>
- Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:46:28 +0000
- To: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- CC: Shelley Powers <shelleypowers@burningbird.net>, Gez Lemon <g.lemon@webprofession.com>, John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu>, "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>, public-html-a11y@w3.org
Hi Laura, >The danger of broadening the scope and distorting the > purpose of @summary to include everyone is that discussions can > quickly degenerate and lose focus, rather than addressing the initial > use case. > > Access for people with disabilities is essential. This does not mean > that features should be omitted if not all users can fully make use of > them but rather that alternative/equivalent mechanisms must be > provided where needed. People with disabilities face some unique > challenges and barriers (and are only too often systemically > excluded). To ensure that such exclusion does not occur in HTML 5, it > does need to contain some features that are *only* of use to people > with certain disabilities, if functional equivalents can't provided. > > Example: The image in the img element is not perceivable by blind > users. It has mechanisms for adding text alternatives. No one is > arguing to make alt text visible by default or add a button for it. A > text alternative for an image is not rendered with the image. Text > alternatives are there for people who cannot perceive the image. The > same principle applies to the summary attribute. > > The reason for retaining @summary as valid and conforming is to ensure > a group people with disabilities, blind and non-visual users, have a > table summary mechanism and are not shut out. Very good points and certainly worth the wider consideration of the group. Cheers Josh
Received on Monday, 1 March 2010 15:47:18 UTC