AT and "hidden" data, was: Why I don't attend the weekly teleconference (Was: Input on the agenda)

Murray Maloney wrote:
> ...
>> I think fundamentally that approaches to accessibility that rely on
>> education are basically doomed. We need to have accessibility be much 
>> more
>> automatic than that. We need to make it easier to write accessible pages
>> than to not do so, even for people who don't care about accessibility.
>> This is why, for instance, we have separation of presentation from
>> semantics as such a core feature in HTML5 (and HTML4) -- it's not called
>> out as an accessibility feature, but it gets authors into the mindset of
>> thinking of what they mean, not what they want it to look like, and that
>> helps AT users.
> 
> "Approaches to accessibility that rely on education are basically 
> doomed." Ian Hickson, 2009
> 
> Does the WG agree with this principle?
> ...

I don't think so.

What I *do* agree with is that it's a good thing if it does not rely on 
education, but that doesn't automatically mean that a feature that does 
and is already there should be removed.

BR, Julian

Received on Thursday, 2 July 2009 04:54:38 UTC