Philosophy of WCAG Re: guideline 7.1 about screen flickering (fwd)

As I understand it we are writing a technical specification, which describes
how to ensure that people can access your content regardless of disability.
So if there is some feature which people might use that can break
accessibility for some people then we need to describe the circumstances
this can happen, what the effects are, and how to avoid them.

We do not outlaw anything, we merely point out what effect this can have on
users and how to ensure that this does not occur if it is undesirable (or
that it does where it is a desirable effect).

So I think we (Kynn and I) are saying the same things, but with different
perspectives so different phrasing.

Cheers

Charles

On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
[snip]
  For examples, advertisers _want_ to distract you from doing other
  things.  To them it -is- a good thing that banner ads draw your
  attention -- why else are they used?  The purpose of the banner ad
  _is_ to distract the user, or else you don't use a banner ad at
  all.

  Sorry if these harsh realities bother some folks, but the "intent of
  the author" is for that there animated gif to "distract" someone.
  That is its function in the design.  And the author -should- retain
  the ability to decide which components of the page will actively
  try to attract attention.
[snip]
  WCAG should not "protect" against the author's intended use of the site.
  The needs of the user are -obviously- important, but it's not the job of
  WCAG to say that the user's needs always must come before the site's
  needs.
[snip]

Received on Thursday, 26 July 2001 22:36:05 UTC