Re: Reasonable default styles and visual accessibility

> I find it strange that even blind web authors have to add or link basic
> visual CSS styles to their documents to make them accessible – not only to
> handicapped people but to the general audience as well.

Is that true? HTML typically defines a default presentation [1,2]
which is more or less faithfully followed by user agents [3].

Although arguably not what would commonly be understood as pretty, I’m
not aware of particular accessibility issues with these styles. Even
if, CSS offers customization options just as much as one may find
issues that are user agent, not author responsibility [4].

Still, you may want to make specific suggestions to the spec authors,
on this list. Endorsement by the WCAG WG [5] will likely help as well
as comments through the CSS WG [6], though Sam and others may want to
confirm this.

I guess one does not simply change HTML’s default styles [7]—or I’d be
a bit surprised if one does ;)


[1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/rendering.html#rendering
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/rendering.html#introduction-7
[3] http://meiert.com/en/blog/20070922/user-agent-style-sheets/
[4] http://joeclark.org/appearances/atmedia2007/
[5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/
[6] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/
[7] https://imgflip.com/i/7vl8f

-- 
Jens O. Meiert
http://meiert.com/en/

Received on Tuesday, 1 April 2014 16:48:06 UTC