Re: Validation: what criteria in L1, L2 or L3?...

On 23 Jun, Maurizio Boscarol wrote:
> 
> I can't undertand the criteria with which most of you want to put 
> Validity in L1.
> 
> If the criteria is "non valid pages MAY lead to problem of 
> accessibility", can some of you explain what kind of statement could
> we put in L2 and even L3?
> 
> What kind of issues would you put in L2 and L3 and *why*? Should the 
> "reasonable effort" become a part of criteria or it shouldn't?
> 
> Seriously, I can't understand your overestimation of validation, 
> ignoring a whole world of disabled users (not only blind user) that
> use pages despite of validation issues.

  All right. Let me try to explain my point of view with these two
  questions:

    Can you, or anyone else, guarantee that under no circumstances will
    a syntax error, or a combination of syntax errors, in any user-agent
    make it impossible for a user to access the information on the site?

  and

    Can you, or anyone else, guarantee that under no circumstances will
    a missing alt-text in any user-agent make it impossible for a user
    to access the information on the site?


  If the answer to the latter is "No", then the argument will likely be:
  but not ALL images are important; leaving alternative content out of a
  spacer-gif does no harm for accessibility - no information is actually
  lost, after all.

  A basic principle for accessibility must, surely, be the one set forth
  by Jon Postel in RFC 791 all those years ago: "... conservative
  in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior."

  Whatever we put in at the other levels: the basis must surely be to
  ensure that non-broken structures are sent to user-agents.

  This concludes my participation in the debate. I hope the WAI-GL will
  make the right decision; we have had to live with the idea that it
  is less important to have correct structures and valid code than it is
  to use the simplest language appropriate.

  It wears thin; awfully thin.


-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@greytower.net                http://www.greytower.net/
   [+46] 0708 557 905

Received on Thursday, 23 June 2005 16:31:02 UTC