- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 16:55:39 -0500 (EST)
- To: Chetz Colwell <c.g.colwell@herts.ac.uk>
- cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
This is a tricky problem. If we remove P1 from things which are not supported by browsers x,y and z (where x,y, and z are an ever-changing and personal set, then we are compromising what is supposed to happen (according to various agreed standards, such as HTML 4.0, XML 1.0, etc) and therefore the accessibility gains which are available to people using a good browser. This seems foolish. On the other hand, people don't like doing something that doesn't work for them. One of the challenges we face is getting people to understand that the purpose of following these guidelines is that things they cannot see (or otherwise perceive...) with their browser may be crucial for people who are using a different browser. Charles McCN On Sat, 13 Mar 1999, Chetz Colwell wrote: <message 5 of 8>. Hi, Checkpoint 7.4 says that data cells in tables must be associated to header cells. This is Priority 1 although Headers and IDs are not yet widely supported. A participant thought that it is unreasonable to say that authors 'must' implement tags that are not yet supported. Chetz has previously raised this issue and a paragraph was inserted in 'How the Guidelines are organised' which states that some technologies may not be supported yet in some browsers. This may not be sufficient: some particpants were frustrated to find that a tag was not yet supported when they had worked on implementing it. In some cases they removed the tag altogether. They stated that they wished to be informed if tags are not widely supported. Potential Solution: * Perhaps the Guidelines / Techniques can warn authors that this may be the case (for each Guideline, rather than just in 'How the GLs are organised') so that they have a choice. If tags are likely to be supported only by special devices and not by the main browsers this could be indicated. Otherwise, the Note in 'How the GLs are organised' could be moved to a more prominent position, such as the beginning of the Intro. Regards, Chetz and Helen. ----- Chetz Colwell and Helen Petrie, <c.g.colwell@herts.ac.uk>, <h.l.petrie@herts.ac.uk>. Sensory Disabilities Research Unit, University of Hertfordshire, UK. Tel: +44 1707 284629 Fax: +44 1707 285059 --Charles McCathieNevile mailto:charles@w3.org phone: +1 617 258 0992 http://www.w3.org/People/Charles W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI MIT/LCS - 545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139, USA
Received on Sunday, 14 March 1999 16:55:51 UTC