- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 23:11:32 -0800
- To: love26@gorge.net (William Loughborough), Anne Pemberton <apembert@crosslink.net>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
- Cc: <wapdesign@wapdesign.org.uk>
At 5:26 AM -0800 11/17/00, William Loughborough wrote: >The intention is not to avoid its use but to elucidate its >implications. It is not *just a line* because it is a skimming >target for sighted users and its function as a place-marker/divider >is what's being covered. The notion of revealing structural elements >is counter-intuitive for blindless people because it's so "obvious" >why there's a bit of red that shows something is a new item, or >whatever. Structure, like grammar, is almost hard-wired in the brain >so making it clear *to* the author and *for* the reader is what the >aim is. It's a fairly monumental task and is at the root of the >separation of content/structure/presentation dicta. Sometimes the intent simply is "to provide a visual cue for sighted users." As Anne pointed out, this has a lot of benefits for users who can see. It's weird to suggest that this needs to be removed. In what technologies used by blind people today do horizontal rules present a problem? What would happen if a web browser either (a) chose to notify all <hr /> tags with "horizontal rule", (b) chose to ignore all <hr /> tags, or (c) one of the above based on the choice of the user? What harm, exactly, would be done to the accessibility of the page to those users who are blind? Are you really preventing a barrier to access by this approach? Is it worth the potential of introducing a barrier to access/readability by a graphically oriented user of Netscape 3.0? --Kynn -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> http://www.kynn.com/
Received on Saturday, 18 November 2000 02:27:10 UTC