- From: Slaydon, Eugenia <ESlaydon@beacontec.com>
- Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 09:21:01 -0400
- To: "'Charles McCathieNevile'" <charles@w3.org>, Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
- Cc: "'w3c-wai-gl@w3.org'" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
I have a problem with this checkpoint then. I had interpreted it in the same way Jason did. I have to support NN 4.x in our sites and 'em' and 'small' are destroyed. The only way to get the sites to render identically in all browsers is with 'pt' or 'px'. I assumed that by checking the site by turning on the ignore colors, font sizes and styles was a good check. The sites look awful but still retain their structure and are usable. If using relative sizes is the only way to pass - then I'm unable to comply. Eugenia -----Original Message----- From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 5:43 AM To: Jason White Cc: Virant, Michael W; 'w3c-wai-gl@w3.org' Subject: Re: Checkpoint 3.4 relative vs absolute On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Jason White wrote: Virant, Michael W writes: > > Please confirm that absolute values in a CSS file still pass checkpoint 3.4 as > long as I've validated that the rendered content is usable. Jason: That seems to be what WCAG 1.0 is saying, as I read the checkpoint. CMN Aah. One of those rare occasions when Jason and I disagree. As I read the checkpoint "Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values" using absolute size values fails it. Michael quoted: http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag-curric/sam32-0.htm written by Chuck Letourneau states: "For example, in CSS, use 'em' or percentage lengths rather than 'pt' or 'cm', which are absolute units. If absolute units are used, validate that the rendered content is usable by checking the results on various browsers or systems." CMN As I read this it is going beyond the checkpoint. My interpretation is that if you use absolute values you fail to meet the checkpoint. Even if you fail to meet the checkpoint, you should try to minimise the actual problems this causes. (That works as a general principle - not just for this checkpoint). Often it is difficult to get size and positioning right in complex layouts. In many of these cases simplifying the layout is helpful for users, as well as for the designer trying to make their layout work accessibly. Complex layouts of links, especially, often arise because too much is being squeezed into one page. Although this helps to compensate for the fact that browsers never seem to quite manage to get bookmarks perfect (they should be more like authoring web links and less like some magic different thing, but most browsers are built on the assumption that the Web is more like TV than an interactive place for knowledge sharing), it makes pages hard to use for anyone. (I would cite any number of government and large corporate pages I use as a regular Australian as evidence - finding a link among 60 or 120 is difficult, and harder when they have been styled to blend into each other...) Like Jason, I am not representing any group opinion here, just my personal understanding. Cheers Charles McCN
Received on Tuesday, 18 June 2002 09:10:02 UTC