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 JoshReceived on Monday, 1 March 2010 15:47:18 UTC
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