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

LK:
"... it's often possible... and many big time sites do this 
already... to restrict images of text to logos, and perhaps a few headings 
or links that incorporate the logo or the specific logo font... and use 
HTML text with commonly available fonts and colors in a manner that 
coordinates with the logo.  This presents an overall look that supports the 
brand, while maximizing accessibility, and offering other advantages as 
well....faster loading,  less web traffic, and easier internationalization 
and maintenance."

CS:
IMHO, this is a reasonable and balanced approach.  I think most designers
(and even their employers) could read the above and agree with it.  
That leaves 2 questions:
1) Does this adequately address the needs of low-vision users?
2) How would one write this in guidelineese?  

I'll defer to the area experts on #1. 

#2 seems to tie into another thread on this list.  The above statement
describes a subjective, even artistic, process requiring a fair bit of
judgment on the part of the designer.  Any attempt to rewrite it in a "do
this, don't do that" format is going to require qualifiers (or "waffling")
to express that subjectivity. 

Here's a (somewhat weak) attempt:
<checkpoint>
Minimize the use of text in images, opting instead for HTML text styled with
CSS. Choose fonts which are available on most users' machines and which can
be rendered using CSS. You may use text in images for logos and limited
accent elements where specialized fonts and text treatments are required,
and cannot be achieved with CSS.
</checkpoint>

"Minimize" doesn't seem much different than "avoid", but it does accurately
express the task at hand.  I think we may have moved crossed the line from
"simple enough" to "too simple" in our attempt to remove qualifiers.







-----Original Message-----
From: Leonard R. Kasday [mailto:kasday@acm.org]
Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 2:05 PM
To: Marshall Jansen; Kynn Bartlett; Wendy A Chisholm
Cc: 'w3c-wai-gl@w3.org'; Cynthia Shelly
Subject: Re: Len's CSS solution for the text in image problem - will
designers adopt?


At 07:00 AM 10/24/00 -0500, Marshall Jansen wrote:
 > 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.

Marshall,

You were copied into the middle of this discussion I guess.

I wasn't trying to use HTML text in  logo.   I agree with you that's a 
problem... in fact I may object to it even more strongly than you do, since 
I suspect it goes beyond aesthetics, and endangers the logo copyright 
(although I'm trying to get a better legal opinion on this).  So I've 
advocated all long that logos, especially logos used as trademarks, are 
exceptions.

My point is that it's often possible... and many big time sites do this 
already... to restrict images of text to logos, and perhaps a few headings 
or links that incorporate the logo or the specific logo font... and use 
HTML text with commonly available fonts and colors in a manner that 
coordinates with the logo.  This presents an overall look that supports the 
brand, while maximizing accessibility, and offering other advantages as 
well....faster loading,  less web traffic, and easier internationalization 
and maintenance.

Len


--
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 22:00:18 UTC