Re: Minutes from 16 November 2000 WCAG WG telecon

At 12:32 PM 11/18/00 -0000, Sean B. Palmer wrote:
>     Guideline 2. Separate content and structure from
>     presentation and explicitly define significant structural
>     or semantic distinctions in markup or in a data model.
>   - http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/

Sean, this is one of the guidelines that remains somewhat incomprehensible
to me. I've been making web pages for many years, occasionally get paid for
one, and have never yet created a "data model" to do one. I don't typically
work from outlines but start working with the first word or graphic for a
page... structure emerges from the needs of the content, not the other way
around ... After the structure emerges from the content, the presentation
may be altered to emphasize the structure. But despite the thought system
involved, what is produced is a working web page ... delivering content,
structure and presentation in one package. Moving presentation out of the
basic package seems likely to increase probability for errors. 

As Kynn pointed out, this isn't a religious affiliation, and true believers
are tempered by practical voices. CSS may be practical someday, but today
isn't that day. Before CSS is widely supported, something better may come
along ..
Something that combines coding for "visual aides" however they are used, so
that hearing readers know what's going on. At present, by using a graphic
as a line instead of <hr>, I can apply an alt tag, a Title, and a long
description. What more is offered in CSS? 

				Anne



Anne L. Pemberton
http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Pav/Academy1
http://www.erols.com/stevepem/Homeschooling
apembert@crosslink.net
Enabling Support Foundation
http://www.enabling.org

Received on Saturday, 18 November 2000 14:28:20 UTC