Re: Len's CSS solution for the text in image problem - will designers adopt?

Actually, Marshall's example of the CNN web 
site  http://www.cnn.com  supports use of HTML text.

Even though the menu bar at the top looks at first glance like an image 
map, it's really HTML text, with CSS used to supress the underlines (just 
like Microsoft, another company that's no slouch)

Most of the headings which look superficially like images are text inside 
colored boxes.  The exceptions are titles like Time.com which is a logo. 
There's also a few links, part of an image map, with the letters CNN 
written as the CNN logo and text tightly tied to the logo (CNN Radio is a 
good example).

So actually this site follows the guidelines I suggested: viz  HTML text 
except in logos, and where specifically needed to support the brand 
look.  And even there, it's  used sparingly.

Unfortunately, they missed ALT text in the image map.  But the good news is 
that suggests that reasons other than accessibility were sufficient to lead 
them to that design.  My guess is that a big factor was that they offer it 
in local languages, e.g. German, Italian, Swedish, etc. and keeping text as 
HTML minimizes the number of images they have to change... they just had to 
change the main logo and that one image map with the CNN logos.

So There's a bunch of big time sites that are content to use HTML text... 
CNN, Alta Vista, Microsoft....  Lets not assume that designers will reject 
it out of hand.

It would be interesting to plot use of HTML text vs. company profits... I 
bet there's a positive correlation .. and I'm only half joking.   (If 
someone really goes ahead and does a regression analysis, please control 
for industry type).

As far as Coca-cola.com...
That starts off with a flash screen, and no alternative, which is a whole 
different topic.  (If you want to discuss flash please start a new thread).

Len


At 07:00 AM 10/24/00 -0500, Marshall Jansen wrote:
>At 02:53 PM 10/23/00 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
> >At 03:06 PM 10/23/2000 , Wendy A Chisholm wrote:
> >>Kynn, Cynthia, Marshall, and others who represent designers, do you think
>it will it be accepted by designers?  It's using CSS which won't be
>supported on older browsers which causes me to anticipate designers balking
>at this.
> >
> >In short, no, but I don't think I could convince anyone, especially
> >Len, because the argument "designers won't accept it and won't do
> >it" doesn't seem to hold much weight 'round here. :)
>
>I agree. Len's solution (this is the mixture of graphics, text, and css to
>show a parts of the logo as a graphic, and the rest as css, right?) but
>anyway, Len's solution simply won't be acceptable to the majority of people.
>
>Think of the following: Coca-Cola and CNN both use 'text' as logos. CNN has
>their blocky text, and Coca-Cola has their signature font. Neither of these
>can be shown in CSS, and so these logos would at best be a pale shadow of
>the standard. Any other company that uses a stylized font, or certain text
>graphic effects simply cant pull off this hybrid scheme, so they won't
>accept it.
>
> >Any web designer who does this would get fired the minute that Marshall's
> >boss looked at the page in Netscape 3 and saw "it's broken", and would
> >get replaced by a web designer who understands the need for backwards
> >compatibility and thus uses a graphic to convey branding content.
> >(See Marshall's comments from a few weeks ago on this topic.)
>
>My 'old' boss, by the way. My new boss actually approves of CSS :)
>
>But Kynn's point is valid, and something I dealt with regularly. ANY
>variations of the page caused problems, even when those variations were
>caused by the different way Macs and PCs presented pages that I had little
>or no control over (pixel size, gamma levels, form items). Something as
>blatant as a different font? The site was BROKEN, and had to be fixed. This
>caused me to have to use several images that I would have preferred to use
>as CSS, because they HAD to be in the corporate font.
>
>I finally won a major battle just before I left the compnay (and I believe
>that I won it mostly because they only had me for 4 more weeks, so I got a
>lot of pull on how things would look), and actually put a fair amount of
>the text on the page in CSS. I did it because I knew I could control the
>VP/President's view of the pages while they were in 'test', by only showing
>them the pages in IE5, and that by the time the pages went live, I would be
>at a new job, and the VP of Marketing was ready to explain why Netscape
>didn't support the site's 'dynamic' features.
>
>Needless to say, very few web designers can get away with that regularly,
>and even then, I couldn't do everything I wanted to do.
>
>In the 'real world' of corporate web design, I think we need to focus less
>on the 50,000 foot view of perfect accessibility for all, and instead focus
>on accessibility practices that these companies can accept. If they can
>have their site look and work the way they want, and still be relatively
>accessible, I think we can make that sell. If they have to change their
>look and feel, their branding, what have you? They'll simply not do it. My
>company was relatively small, but still spent hundreds of thousands of
>dollars on a print media campaign, and the web page was going to benefit
>from that expenditure, and carry that consistent look and feel, because
>they spent money on it. That said, this argument over A and AA compliance
>is relatively moot. If A compliance can be attained with the sie looking
>the way the company wants, then that's a possible goal. If a single facet
>of AA or AAA compliance changes the look and feel of the site, don't expect
>it to happen. I for one don't have a problem with that, but I feel that
>might be a minority opinion.
>
>Marshall

--
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP and Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Temple 
University
(215) 204-2247 (voice)                 (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday         mailto:kasday@acm.org

Chair, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Evaluation and Repair Tools Group
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/

The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant: 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/

Received on Tuesday, 24 October 2000 16:26:51 UTC