Re: Accessibility is for everyone (was : Use of headers and summary attributes )

Preston L. Bannister wrote:

> Accessibility is a worthy goal, but the use of attributes without 
> expertise (or any sort of semantic check) may have little or no value in 
> general use.

Indeed. Even reading weblogs in an images-disabled feedreader gives an 
impression of just how bad many authors are at this kind of thing.

I would venture that as far as possible we should be trying to make the 
lanuge such that increased accessibility is the happy byproduct of 
authors optimizing their markup for common cases (graphical browsers, 
search engines, etc.) rather than something that has to be considered 
separately. Of course this will not always be possible but we should 
strive for solutions where this is the case and, given a straight trade 
off between markup that meets 90% of the accessibility requirements and 
will be used correctly by most authors and markup that meets 100% of the 
requirements but will only be used correctly by those with a special 
interest in producing accessible pages, we should choose the former on 
the basis that it will tend to produce more accessible content in general.

-- 
"Instructions to follow very carefully.
Go to Tesco's.  Go to the coffee aisle.  Look at the instant coffee. 
Notice that Kenco now comes in refil packs.  Admire the tray on the 
shelf.  It's exquiste corrugated boxiness. The way how it didn't get 
crushed on its long journey from the factory. Now pick up a refil bag. 
Admire the antioxidant claim.  Gaze in awe at the environmental claims 
written on the back of the refil bag.  Start stroking it gently, its my 
packaging precious, all mine....  Be thankful that Amy has only given 
you the highlights of the reasons why that bag is so brilliant."
-- ajs

Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 18:20:38 UTC