Re: Should validity be P1 or P2? (was RE: summary of resolutions from last 2 days)

Cranky, cranky, cranky!

>>> That is an unsupported claim. Nobody has provided even the standard 
>>> three *real-world* examples that I repeatedly call for and never get.
>> 
>> You don't get them because you're not the boss of me,

Surely you forgot the word "now," so your blandishment could then be sung 
by They Might Be Giants. See you at karaoke night?

>> or anyone else for that matter, and nobody has agreed to your criteria 
>> but you.

If the Working Group can't come up with three real-world examples of 
claimed problems, there isn't any justification to write a criterion to 
address the problems, because they can't be demonstrated to exist.

But I'm glad a staffmember of WAI pro tem actually suggested that 
producing examples of problems isn't necessary, in part because I asked 
for it. That'll go over real well.

>> I have already outlined a number of ways in which valid code can be 
>> inaccessible, which I recap here in handy list form:
>> 
>> - Non-semantic HTML (<b> or <font>

<b> and <font> aren't inaccessible per se. <b> and <strong> will typically 
be dealt with interchangeably. <font size="-1"> has what accessibility 
problem, exactly, to use one example?

Besides, Matt's point is that invalid HTML (including nonsemantic HTML) 
can be accessible, so let's not have 'er both ways, please.


OK, on to Christophe's submissions:

> Example 1: the homepage of http://www.hyfinity.com/, which claims valid XHTML

[...]

> The body consists only of <div>, <span> and <a> elements; there is not a 
> single <hx> or <p> in sight.

OK.

Can your screen reader read it? Can a deaf person?

It's nonsemantic HTML, but is there an accessibility problem?

Same with Examples 2 and 3.


> Example 4: http://www.brainmass.com/content/about/. (Almost valid XHTML 1.0 
> Transitional:

"Almost" doesn't count in this case. Next.

> Example 5: http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/annual_reports/02_03/overviews/2.html.

[...]

> Uses <b> instead of something semantic (e.g. <strong>),although the real 
> problem with this page are missing longdescs for the charts and figures.

A stronger case, but clearly still debatable since the Working Group 
continues to believe that numbers can be turned into graphs and then into 
words with no problem at all. By the way, nobody has a really good 
solution for org charts. (People have certainly tried to make them work 
with <ul> and <ol>.)

The later missing-metadata examples do not demonstrate actual 
accessibility defects, from what I can see. <caption> is optional in most 
cases, and if you have only one logically grouped set of table rows, you 
don't have to specify <tbody>-- by spec.

<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html#edef-TBODY>


> Example 3: http://orgel.datzko.ch/examples.html. Valid XHTML 1.0 
> Transitional. The page contains a data table with <tbody> and without <thead> 
> or <th>.

Missing <th> is more serious, but in a small table, not critical. The 
bigger problem in that table is differentiating between the cells marked 
with X and those marked with dash. This could be a case of inaccessibility 
based on content of <td> and not on markup.

>> - Missing functional code (<noframes>, frame titles)

I find these hard to take seriously since WCAG 1's frames advice has been 
superseded by events. Frame *titles* are clearly more important than 
<noframes> content, and I'm happy to grant you that. It is indeed true 
that frames-based sites are rare today and valid frames sites rarer still. 
Lack of an optional attribute does not inaccessibility make, or else 
wouldn't we be complaining about the absence of accesskey and tabindex?

>> If you can't find three examples of each of these in a day's worth of 
>> browsing, I'll eat my hat and both of my shoes.

Good thing I'm a vegan. And anyway, *you* put in the day's worth of 
browsing; you're the one claiming it's a problem, boss.

-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
       --This.
       --What's wrong with top-posting?

Received on Tuesday, 21 June 2005 15:56:33 UTC