- From: Ben Boyle <benjamins.boyle@gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 17:59:12 +1000
- To: "Sander Tekelenburg" <st@isoc.nl>
- Cc: public-html@w3.org
There are a couple of levels of accessibility at play here. 1. embedded content should be accessible itself. If you embedding flash, you should be producing accessible flash. If you are embedding video, it should contain captions and audio description, etc. This is all fine, it's accessibility related, it's quite challenging to do, and it's largely irrelevant to the HTML WG as it must be managed entirely outside of HTML anyway. 2. providing a fallback for when a plugin cannot be used. For example, I run 64bit firefox at home here. There is no 64bit plugin for flash. How can authors of HTML pages provide a fallback for me (something better than the browser "missing plugin" message?) This is where it would be useful to be able to use <embed> ... fallback ... </embed>. This is highly relevant to the HTML WG as it is directly related to fallback mechanisms within HTML itself. Just want to highlight the difference between (1) making plugin content accessible and (2) providing fallbacks for plugin content. Both are important, but only the latter can be addressed through HTML. Note that this latter is usually not about "disabilities" but about technical constraints. Some of these are temporary (64bit flash doesn't exist), there are often workarounds (I could install a 32bit browser in my 64bit OS), but sometimes it is entirely out of the users hands (the prime example is the locked down corporate browser you are allowed - subject to strict usage policies - to use at your workplace which you cannot, and absolutely must not, and had better not speak of, customising). As authors caring about accessibility, we need HTML to provide the mechanisms to support users as best we can in all these situations. Places emphasising these requirements are: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/#tech-scripts http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/html-design-principles/Overview.html#degrade-gracefully http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/html-design-principles/Overview.html#universal-access I also just read this gem :) http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/html-design-principles/Overview.html#priority-of-constituencies We are very much talking about the needs of users and authors here, and in all threads relating to metadata/fallback mechanisms around embedded content (and tables). cheers Ben
Received on Sunday, 1 July 2007 07:59:16 UTC