Re: Feedback on the current editor's draft

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Henri Sivonen<hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote:

>> New grouping tag - <dialog> element
>> ===================================
>>
>> * <dialog>
>>  Conversation, meeting minutes, chat transcript, etc. (uses
>>  HTMLElement)
>>
>> Feedback
>> --------
>>
>> Do we really need this new element? It seems arbitrary.
>
> This element addresses a permathread but only creates new permathreads. I
> think the original permathread should be resolved by explicitly blessing the
> use of <dl> for marking up conversation and removing the <dialog> element.

I'm in general unconvinced that dialogs are common enough that they
warrant their own markup. What is an implementation, such as a screen
reader or browser, supposed to do with them that adds value to the
user?

>> The <progress> and <meter> elements don't seem to be adequately
>> specified to provide interoperable implementations. Page authors want
>> precise control over the layout of their pages and this doesn't appear
>> to be adequately accounted for.
>
> Clearly, stylability of all UI widgets is very much in demand but not a
> solved problem across all UAs. I think procedurally, the issue belongs in
> the CSS WG, but I think the HTML-native UI widgets are at risk of being
> worked around by authors as long as the styling issue hasn't been thoroughly
> addressed.

Are <meter>s really common enough to warrant their own markup? I
struggle to think of sites where I've seen them. Granted, I couldn't
remember the google page-rank used as example in the spec (though I
don't think google render them any more), so it's quite possible that
there are many more. The only common pattern I can think of where I've
seen them is inside graphs, so I guess you could do something like:

Market share:
<img src="graph.png" alt="">
<p style="overflow: hidden; height:0;">
 Ericsson:<meter>40%</meter>,
 Nokia:<meter>30%</meter>,
 Motorola:<meter>12%</meter>,
 Others:<meter>18%</meter>
</p>

However, does this provide any value to AT users over the <meter>
elements not being there? I'm far from an accessibility expert, so
please forgive me if the answer is obvious.

Another data point might be if platform UI libraries commonly provide
a gauge widget?

/ Jonas

Received on Wednesday, 12 August 2009 10:44:03 UTC