Time is on our side

Nir Dagan writes:
>... 99% will never write a stylesheet for the non-visual media, at >least in the near future.

WL:: Because humans still have 12-month years and we are working in a
medium with 90-day years, this perception of "never" in connection with
style sheets (and HTML 4, for that matter) can work to our advantage. 
It just *seems* like accessibility is a back burner item because the WAI
itself is less than one human year old!  Yet we are already implanted in
lots of minds.  While individual authors may be unaware of the problem
(let alone the Initiative <grin>), the possibility of new authoring
tools trumpeting that they are "HTML 4.0 READY" is going to be a big
plus, particularly if we get them to join us in publicizing the
importance of accessibility to everyone, with the inclusion of people
with disabilities as a fortunate side-effect.  In the year since WAI's
intro things have moved positively and if you think back ten years (an
easy task as you age) Web Access was unheard of because the Web was
mostly a fantasy!  Style Sheets will be used because their application
will be made transparent to authoring tool users by the programs
themselves.  Workarounds to get the paragraphs placed "properly" on the
page will be unnecessary because the competition among authoring tool
makers will lead to almost trivial inclusion of CSS without the user
even knowing what the "C" stands for.
-- 
Love.
            ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE
http://dicomp.pair.com

Received on Friday, 6 February 1998 09:34:25 UTC