Re: Path to Last Call (was closing various issues)

On 24/08/2009 22:11, William Loughborough wrote:
 > I don't even accept that in general authors even have "goals".

[snip]

 > There is no imperative reason that they should get easily onto
 > the Web unless they "play by the rules", including providing
 > accessibility. If their goal is to get onto the Web, I agree they may
 > try to game the rules that are in place but that doesn't excuse not
 > putting any rules in place.

[snip]

 > I think the first two claims are (nothing pejorative intended) bogus
 > and it is silly to think that there can be any verifiable evaluation
 > of the prediction's reliability

I cannot see the claim that making authoring accessible content easier 
will not increase the amount of accessible web content gaining any 
consensus.

But if one accepted this claim, why would one prefer the shadow DOM tree 
approach to "canvas" interactivity over any other approach for providing 
equivalent information and functionality?

The editor's draft already requires authors to provide this as a point 
of conformance:

"When authors use the canvas element, they must also provide content 
that, when presented to the user, conveys essentially the same function 
or purpose as the bitmap canvas."

http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#the-canvas-element

Given sufficient authorial effort, authors can conform by linking to an 
alternate version. For example, Bespin could link to a version of Bespin 
that does not use "canvas" for user interface.

As long as correspondents do not compromise on the principle that 
authors must provide equivalent information and functionality as a point 
of conformance, why object when correspondents ask the WG to pursue 
approaches that deliver the same access with less authorial effort in 
the hopes that this will increase the amount of accessible web content?

 > how can we ensure accessibility to the Web?

Except in so far as we bake it in to the technology people choose to 
use, we can't ensure it although we can and should encourage it.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Received on Tuesday, 25 August 2009 00:35:22 UTC