- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 21:19:01 -0400 (EDT)
- To: ADAM GUASCH-MELENDEZ <ADAM.GUASCH@EEOC.GOV>
- cc: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-hwg@idyllmtn.com>, WAI GL <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
In fact the practise Adam refers to of promoting the 'correct' use of technology is not simply provided because it is a nice idea, it is there in substantial part because without a forward-looking, interoperable design approach creating accessible web content and tools will be forever a case of trying to rectify past mistakes, which is often costly and difficult, and therefore in the real world results in the acceptance of a lower level of accesssibility than we could achieve simply becuase it is too hard to fix the mistakes we made in the past. Although we cannot actually predict the future in general, it is a pretty safe bet that accessibility will be easier, more widespread and therefore ultimately much more successful if it is part of the fundamental design philosophy rather than an afterthought retrofitted at considerable expense in some cases. This argument has been expressed before on this list, but I think it bears repeating. After aall, if we don't learn from the mistakes of history we are doomedto repeat tehm, and given the ability of people to discover new mistakes it seems senseless to waste extra energy on avoidable ones. (grin) Charles McCN On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, ADAM GUASCH-MELENDEZ wrote: [among other things] So, the question becomes - should this be a requirement? Strictly speaking, no. But it's a lot easier to tell people to use CSS for control of layout and presentation, than it is to say "use CSS, unless HTML can be used without compromising accessibility - which you'll have to figure out for yourself, on a case-by-case basis." It also helps to promote proper use of CSS - use it for the simple stuff and you're more likely to use it for more complex work. It also means that when future versions of HTML drop certain elements entirely - moving FONT from deprecated to obsolete, for example - no revisions will be necessary to keep up with the standards. If the guidelines are intended as simply a set of rules to promote accessibility, then this particular checkpoint, and several others as well, can be tossed out or at least significantly revised. But I think that part of the value of the guidelines is that they promote not only accessibility, but also proper use of HTML, CSS and other standard technologies. There seems to be a strong emphasis on forward-compatibility, which IMHO is a very good thing. Of course, backwards-compatibility is also critical, and in a situation where information would be lost by meeting all the checkpoints (e.g., my early concern about the Q element), then not implementing a checkpoint would be reasonable (and as was pointed out to me, specifically allowed by the guidelines themselves). That doesn't appear to be the case in the example provided.
Received on Monday, 19 July 1999 21:19:07 UTC