- From: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 7 May 2007 15:11:12 -0500
- To: www-html@w3.org, public-html@w3.org
On 5/6/07, Tina Holmboe <tina@greytower.net> wrote: > I have, repeatedly, stated that the I-element as defined does not > convey any meaning, but the EM-element does. I agree. Some elements, like i in HTML, relate to presentation. They are typographic conventions. e.g. in italic letters usually sloped to the right. They don't really convey anything about the meaning of the content. They convey how information should to be displayed. Some users don't see pages or use a visual browser. You can't rely upon purely visual renderings and typographic conventions to convey meaning outside of a visual browser. To separate content from design, semantic markup, like em and strong, should be used. Typographic conventions and visual presentation is the job of CSS. Mark up information by its implied meaning. Worry about style later. Also italic text can have issues in visual browsers for people with low vision. Most monitors have a native resolution of only 72-96 dpi, which can leave italic text jagged and very hard to read, especially for those with vision problems. Italic text is particularly bad at small sizes because it does not easy to render using a square pixel grid. Italic letters are harder to read on a computer monitor than in print ([1] Arditi 2005). Italic letters may also cause spacing problems in some browsers ([2] Fussino, 2004). Some dyslexic people find italic text difficult to read ([3] University of Manchester and [4]John Bradford). Laura [1] http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/legible/ [2] http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/italicbug-ie.html [3] http://www.websupport.man.ac.uk/accessibility/Disabilities/dyslexia.html [4] http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/mag35.html -- Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/
Received on Monday, 7 May 2007 20:11:20 UTC