- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 23:03:59 -0800
- To: "Sean B. Palmer" <sean@mysterylights.com>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
- Cc: "Anne Pemberton" <apembert@crosslink.net>
At 2:46 PM +0000 11/17/00, Sean B. Palmer wrote:
>Other elements that should be totally avoided are <b> (e.g. use <strong> and
>CSS), <i> (e.g. use <em> and CSS), and many forms of class="[...]" (e.g. use
>semantic information, Dublin Core or whatever). Why? Well, consider what <b>
>actually means. It doesn't mean anything(!), it just says "render this text
>bold"; it is a visual/structural element that would be better fully replaced
>with a semantic equivalent (<strong>, strong { font-weight: bold; }).
Actually, if you consider "<b>" and "<strong>" to be equivalent,
as many user agents do (including some assistive technology devices)
then there really is no problem. I think the idea that "<b> is evil,
<strong> is the only way" is far too dogmatic to be practical in the
real world. In the real world, any intelligent non-graphical user
agent would consider a <b> element to mean about the same thing as the
<strong> tag. "Increased emphasis" -- such as speaking louder or
deeper -- is a legitimate way as any to represent the <b> tag in a
voice browser, and the dogmatic approach, which would be to ignore the
<b> tag and not render it the same as <strong>, actually leads to a
decrease of accessibility out in the real world.
I think it's important to put practicality into an appropriate slot
in our hierarchy of relevance. Dogmatic approaches have their merits,
but they don't have to be followed like a religion.
--Kynn
--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
http://www.kynn.com/
Received on Saturday, 18 November 2000 02:26:55 UTC