Re: ISSUES 90, 91, 93, 96, 97 -- if you support these change proposals

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 12:19 PM, Laura Carlson
<laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com> wrote:
> John Gunderson, who is a a11y task force member and the Assistive
> Communication and Information Technology Accessibility at the
> University of Illinois said on the survey [1]:
>
> "I think the more we can simplify HTML 5 elements the easier it will
> be to get HTML 5 and accessibility implemented and to explain to
> authors how to create accessible content in HTML5. Browser developers
> will probably not implement these elements anyway if they don't like
> them or do it inconsistently. There is a lot in HTML5 and I think we
> have enough to discuss without spending time on elements that may
> never be implemented."
>
> Jim Allan, who is an a11y task force member, Co-Chair of the User
> Agent working group and webmaster at the Texas School for the Blind
> commented [1]:
>
> "Creation of orphaned, poorly implemented or non-implemented elements
> is not the goal. Having rich semantics that do not require an
> accessibility api to function (not all people with disabilities use
> AT) is laudable. But, only if implemented. Current implementations -
> 0, aria workarounds - 5.

For what it's worth, I don't understand these arguments. The statement

"Browser developers will probably not implement these elements anyway
if they don't like them or do it inconsistently"

Holds true for every single feature in HTML5. Including every feature
that already exists in HTML4. It seems like if that was an argument
against adding features, we couldn't do anything other than release an
empty document and go home.

I'll also note that I haven't yet heard anyone representing a browser
developer arguing against these elements. I would further assume that
no browser developer is going to argue for putting features in the
spec that they don't intend to implement.

Or am I missing something?

/ Jonas

Received on Thursday, 29 April 2010 19:44:52 UTC