Outlet for Authors to override guidelines

Not to be trite, but it appears to me that if an author wants to invoke
personal preference that they simply not conform to WCAG. To be even
more trite, the author may state "This site does not conform to WCAG
because the author feels artistic freedom is more important than
accessibility."

Chris Brainerd
Instructional Designer
Real Choices ACCESS
Center on Disability Studies
University of Hawaii
Chris.brainerd@cds.hawaii.edu
808-956-9356

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Ridpath [mailto:chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca] 
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 6:30 AM
To: Charles McCathieNevile
Cc: WAI GL
Subject: Re: [#293] Summary for tables



> >My argument is that we should, as much as possible, provide a way for

> >authors to override our guidelines while still keeping their pages 
> >accessible.
>

Not quite right. I should have expressed this as:

My argument is that we should, as much as possible, provide a way for
authors to override our guidelines as long as they notify the audience.

Example 1:
Guidelines say there must be good text/background contrast. Author uses
yellow text on white background and states "I want this text to be
difficult to read because of <some artistic reason>".

Example 2:
Guidelines say there should be clear navigation.
Author has porously confusing navigation and states "Navigation is
confusing because I want you to wander around."

Example 3:
Guidelines say content should be understandable.
Author creates easily misunderstood content and states "I am an
anarchist - deal with it."

Regarding the TH rule: If you really want to have THs in your layout
table then you can. Just explicitly state that this is a layout table.

Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles McCathieNevile" <charles@w3.org>
To: "Chris Ridpath" <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>
Cc: "WAI GL" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 11:46 AM
Subject: Re: [#293] Summary for tables


> On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, Chris Ridpath wrote:
>
> >My argument is that we should, as much as possible, provide a way for

> >authors to override our guidelines while still keeping their pages 
> >accessible.
>
> I don't understand this at all. If an author can contravene the 
> guidelines and still produce accessible content surely the guidelines 
> should be
changed,
> no?
>
> Chaals
>

Received on Monday, 21 July 2003 17:53:51 UTC