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

Hi leif,

ok I get your drift 'de-promote' is a bit clunky

how about

The small element represents content with reduced prominence such as small
print.

--

Regards

SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>


On 21 May 2013 19:20, Leif Halvard Silli
<xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no>wrote:

> 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