Re: Jon Gunderson: HTML Specifications for Accessibility

On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, Daniel Dardailler wrote:

> 
> I'm forwarding Jon's message to HC, and I have also told Jon to
> followup on this forum rather than on IG.

Jon writes:

> Is there any attributes in the current proposal for adding text to
> selectors when they are rendered in a browser.  For example in the
> following style sheet excerpt is an example of how text could be
> added to automatically to label selectors for people using screen
> readers, or other forms of speech output or enlarged text using an
> attribute named "preamble". 
> 
> ** style sheet **
> H1 {  preamble: "Header Level 1"
>         font-family: times-roman
>         font-size: 12 }
> 
> ** HTML **
> <H1>Introduction to CSS</H1>
> 
> ** Screen Display ***
> 
> Header Level 1 Introducation to CSS
> 
> The speech system would identify the text as a header since it would be
> rendered on the screen, yet the user could select what they wanted (if at
> all) the message to say.   This is similar to a concept proposed in the
> Auditory Style Sheets.  

At one point there was a proposal for inserting text before or after
an element. Sadly this was rejected by the CSS and FP working group.

I think there is a good case to be made for the more specific
proposal for speak-before and speak-after, defined in a similar
manner to cue-before and cue-after. For example:

Property name:
                     'speak-before' (or 'speak-after')
             Value:
                     "quoted text" | none
             Initial:
                     none
         Applies to:
                     all elements
          Inherited:
                     no
 Percentage values:
                     N/A


where the "quoted text" is a quoted text string to be spoken
before (or after) the rendering of the given element.

cue-before and cue-after are limited to auditory icons specified via
a URL. speak-before and speak-after would provide a means to insert
text directly from the style sheet. 

Regards,

-- Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett
phone: +44 122 578 2984 (or 2521) +44 385 320 444 (gsm mobile)
World Wide Web Consortium (on assignment from HP Labs)

Received on Monday, 3 November 1997 12:21:55 UTC