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

On Tue, 24 Oct 2000, Leonard R. Kasday wrote:

> Kynn asserts that any web designer offering the CSS solution I suggested, 
> for folder tabs with real text, would "get fired".
> 
> First of all, Alta Vista uses tabs with real text, and presumably the 
> designers were not fired.  Of course, that method does hold up in NN 3.

I'd like to point out a couple of things that I find problematic about
seeking refuge in Altavista's design decision:

-By using CSS in the manner they did to display those tabs, they used
absolute font sizing, which is a problem for users with low vision who are
not using assistive technologies (along with folks with large
displays...).

-Looking elsewhere in the document, you see that Altavista _does_ embed
text in images (the Shopping, Entertainment, News and Sports buttons),
even though it's underlined blue text.

I agree wholeheartedly with Kynn here in that designers will reject a
requirement based on this example:

- Fonts are still limited and cannot be reliably represented with respect
to anti-aliasing or ideal positioning by the average designer in the
context of HTML/CSS. I've been in front of classes full of web designers,
and what I know is that the tools won't adequately render the text, and
the skill set of graphic designers doesn't include pushing pixels in CSS.
(Phrase: "To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem
looks like a nail.")

- Targeting text vs. images. This is an issue of usability. Tabs became
prominent thanks to Amazon's use of them, among other predecessors such as
Win95 and GeoWorks. The way in which sighted users interact with tabs is
to click anywhere on the target, not just on the word, as would be done in
textual links. I've run usability tests on this behavior, and this precise
design failed compared to a bitmapped image, as users who clicked outside
of the linked word presumed the site was broken. Like it or not, Amazon is
the standard here, and designers who fail to replicate that kind of
response do so at their own peril.

So, to sum up: clever designers will fail to comply because they are aware
that not accommodating poor targeting skills will be detrimental to more
users than providing ALT text on a bitmapped image. Not-so-clever
designers wouldn't know accessibility if it bit them in the checkpoint,
and there are 20 of them for every clever one, in my jaded opinion.

> As for Kynn's suggestion that some design houses will not bother with 
> double A if they can't use images of text...
> 
> This does get at an important issue, but not the narrow issue of images of 
> text.  The issue I think is what how we define priorities and 
> compliance.  Right now, it's based solely on the difficulty experienced by 
> a user with disabilities.  I think our rating needs to balance the 
> difficulties some design feature causes against the value of or need for 
> that feature.

"Value" is a very subjective term to use here. The "values" a corporation
puts on creating a professional-looking site are what are going to seal
AA's fate on corporate sites. Many companies (none of whom am I speaking
for presently, by the way) would sacrifice higher levels of accessibility
for a site that looks as good as the competitors' in one hot minute. If
this is the only thing that's holding them back, pushing them down to
single-A compliance is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I'm very much in favor of having logos and navigational elements (which
only communicate small bits of data that isn't lost in ALT text anyway) as
the exceptions in P2.

----
matt

Received on Tuesday, 24 October 2000 20:52:47 UTC