- From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
- Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 08:51:25 +1000 (AEST)
- To: WAI Markup Guidelines <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Proprietary extensions to HTML should be completely avoided. In the first place, they tend to be layout mechanisms that would be better implemented through style sheets. Secondly, they are only supported by specific user agents and are thus detrimental to interoperability. This is a particularly important point: an accessible document must be able to be rendered equally well in a variety of different media with a range of software and output devices. The effect of proprietary elements and attributes is that the author's intention is only fully realised by a particular user agent. Thus I disagree radically with Chuck Opperman's assertion that recommending against the use of such extensions involves moving beyond the purview of universal design. Use by all, irrespective of ability, implies interoperability in the sense that the reader should be able to access the document via different devices, employing different HTML user agents.
Received on Tuesday, 28 July 1998 18:51:05 UTC