Re: [RESEND] suggestion: modify <small> definition

Steve Faulkner, Tue, 21 May 2013 14:26:17 +0100:
> fair enough, so how about the following
> 
> "The small element represents de-emphasised content"

De-emphasize can be interpreted as 'remove emphasize'. Would rather 
support the proposal about 'de-promote/demote': "The small element 
represents content that is de-promoted". Some words of justification:

* A heading is more prominent than the article it’s a heading for.
  But a heading isn’t, because of its prominence, ’emphasized’.
* Text outside <small> does no need to be emphasized, even if it
  is more prominent: <p>A word. <small>So small.</small></p>.
* A heading part set in <small> would be less prominent than the
  rest of that heading - but still more prominent than body text.
* Prominent content is what one would consider including in an
  abridged version or outline. Demoted content would be candidate
  for exclusion from a short version/outline.
* Prominence is not affected by <strong> or <em> (but rather by
  things like heading level and order of occurrence). 

> On the topic of users who don't get the effect of smaller text:
> 
> To my knowledge <small> is the same as <span> for screen reader users, so
> in a sense they are advantaged as the visual de-emphasis is not apparent

If HTML5 refines the definition, why couldn’t AT start to present 
<small> differently, to signal its lowered prominence?

Perhaps screen readers could 'illustrate' <small> by reading its 
content faster, so that the user can’t so easily get the details of 
what the text without asking the screen reader software to read slower? 
For instance, imagine that, for a piece of software, the BSD license 
was placed inside the <small> element.  In fact, I  think video/audio 
adverts to a degree already do read ’small print’ (such as message 
about who approved a certain advert) that way. (However, a certain 
contextual evaluation of what <small> means, would probably be needed.)
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Tuesday, 21 May 2013 18:21:28 UTC