- From: Chris Maden <crism@ora.com>
- Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 12:11:00 -0500
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
[Suzan Dolloff] > I received a couple of emails after my reply to your initial request > for review suggesting this probably isn't the most appropriate > discussion for this list. Messages that are purely reviews of Joyce's site probably are inappropriate. However, a lot of good points about general accessibility design have been raised, and messages relating to those should be kept on the list, IMO. > Wasn't mentioned in Bobby, but it would be nice if you included a > text-only version of the page as well and had that link in the > upper-left hand corner of your page so it's the very first thing > someone encounters. I find that a strange suggestion. If the page is readable in Lynx (as you note), why make yet another version? And one without hyperlinks, at that? Is there anyone browsing the Web without the capability to parse HTML? I suppose some desparate soul may be telnet'ing to port 80 and downloading the text into a file, but that would be odd and unusual. More importantly, suggesting that alternate file versions are important for accessibility damages the accessibility initiative in two ways. First of all, if HTML is insufficient for access, then there's no point in designing accessible HTML. Why not go for an all- out, rendered into GIF with JavaScript orgy? If I need a text-only version any way, I might as well. Secondly, ACCESSIBILITY MUST BE EASY. Most people can see. While I want my site to be visible to as many as possible, every extra piece of work necessary moves the border of "possible". Making duplicate versions of every file quickly pushes the visually challenged into the "impossible" side, especially for large Web sites. > Chris Maden suggested you use ALT="--------------------" or > something like that in place of "line.gif," saying most voice > synthesis software is programmed to ignore punctuation. Typically, > that's true and the general default configuration, but for someone > like me who frequents Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and encounters > nicknames which include punctuation characters (`Avers, for example, > or Avers^), I have to set up my software so it DOES read punctuation > so also hear it pronounced in other applications. Quite frankly, If > I encountered ------------ on a web page, it would annoy me, so I > stand by the advice I give in my tutorial on creating speech- and > text-friendly web sites by suggesting use of an empty ALT tag > (ALT="") in this instance. Right now, Lynx renders <hr> as a series of underscores. Does this bother you - does your screen reader read underscores? The best solution, it seems to me, is <hr src="...">, which will still render as an ordinary <hr> in Lynx. Unfortunately, this proposal wasn't adopted for HTML 4.0. The second best solution seems to be <img alt="some description _______________">. Underscores will get in the way of a screen reader and Lynx to exactly the same degree that other rules do, since that's how Lynx renders <hr>s. I was hoping with the varying ASCII graphic versions of the line to convey more of the author's intent, but if that's detrimental, than underscores will suffice. -Chris -- <!NOTATION SGML.Geek PUBLIC "-//Anonymous//NOTATION SGML Geek//EN"> <!ENTITY crism PUBLIC "-//O'Reilly//NONSGML Christopher R. Maden//EN" "<URL>http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/crism/ <TEL>+1.617.499.7487 <USMAIL>90 Sherman Street, Cambridge, MA 02140 USA" NDATA SGML.Geek>
Received on Wednesday, 25 March 1998 12:05:00 UTC