- From: Graham Oliver <graham_oliver@yahoo.com>
- Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 17:11:31 -0800 (PST)
- To: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Cc: Marti <marti@agassa.com>, "Charles F. Munat" <chas@munat.com>, "'Anne Pemberton'" <apembert@crosslink.net>, "'Kynn Bartlett'" <kynn@idyllmtn.com>, w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
--- Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org> wrote: <Charles> < The discussion as I understand it is about a couple of different things. There is a technical issue - what is the place of the font element? As I see it, the use of the font element to enhance backwards compatibility does not conflict with the use of CSS. The use of font alone, to provide formatting effects, is like the use of a style attribute containing CSS, or style sheets that rely on id attributes to assign styles - it makes it very difficult for the reader to provide therir own styles in a meaningful manner. If it is done instead of identifying the semantics available in HTML, this is a double loss. > Graham < I guess the problem that I see in combining style sheets and deprecated html elements is that the resulting code becomes bigger and harder to maintain. Every item on the page is effectively carrying 2 sets of formatting instructions. The CSS and the html for older browsers. I would imagine that this could be difficult to 'sell' to existing web developers and could create a barrier to the dissemination of the 'accessibility message'. > <Charles> < Should we be supporting netscape 3? Intersting question, and one that was raised by Graham Oliver. If a few people have some log data we could find out whether it is really used much. If we can also find out whether that is because people cannot upgrade for some reason, then we will be approaching an answer. The further question is whether that is related to accessibility, or is because their systems administratoror purchasing officer prohibits it (in the latter case, I hope they realise that Netscape 3 was not a free product, and paid for it...). > Graham < yes.. 'should I be developing and testing accessible web sites that our company designs, on IE 3 and NN 3'. My current answer is no. My reasoning :- Development time and testing time are increased. This raises development costs or alternatively takes away time that could be used to test more user access agents for the disabled. Maintenance of the site is increased as the code is more extensive and complex. It could be argued by others (fairly or unfairly?) that the sites our company produces are simply like everyone elses, in that they contain all the HTML but also add on the CSS stuff as well. ie 'they are bloated, more expensive to produce and harder to maintain'. That is not the image that I would want to convey. > <Charles> < Glossing over the fact that there arre a couple of other very small browsers that work the same, let us imagine these scenarios: Nobody uses it ever. (I know this is not true - a friend of mine does, but not from any requirement since he has a numberof other browsers he also uses from time to time - much as I use Lynx). In this case, we could just ignore it. And the font element too. > Graham < OK, we know this isn't the case :-) > <Charles> < There are people with reading disabilities, who, because of their disability are unable to upgrade, and for whom it is effectively impossible to read unformatted text. Then we need to keep supporting it, and providing presentation by the use of font elements in conjunction with CSS is still necessary > Graham < I am uncomfortable with the 'disempowering' nature of this argument. I know alot of 'non-disabled' people who are 'unable' to upgrade their browsers. The reality being that they need to enlist help to upgrade. I accept that it may be easier for a non-disabled person to enlist that help. For me this is more a case of making it easier for a disabled person to upgrade than supporting older browsers. > <Charles> < There are people with disabilities who cannot upgrade and find it difficult to understand default-formatted content. Same goes, but at P2 instead of P1 level (this is an abstract discussion - particular checkpoints of WCAG aside for the moment) > Graham < As above > <Charles> < There are people without disabilities, who use it and don't want to upgrade There is no accessibility requirement to use or not use font. There still is a requirement to use a technology that allows for meaningful control of presentation (CSS element/semantic class based styling, for example). It is up to designers whether they want to provide the same experience for this population or not. > Graham < This seems to be the point that has been being argued back and forth for a while. I have addressed above the reasons why at this point in time I am choosing not the provide this group with the 'same experience.' > <Charles> < Which brings me back to another part of the argument. Should designers expect total control over the presentation of their page? My 2 bits worth says "No, that is simply not possible, like expecting someone to make a night last for 48 hours. It is reasonable for a designer, within the constraints of the medium, to provide a presentation that enhances the comprehension and clarity of their content." (I think that people were vehemently arguing this point against each other, but from the same side in fact). my 2 cents on teh topic that this has become... Charles McCN > Graham < No argument with this at all. My only chance is to come up with another good analogy, but one doesn't spring to mind at the moment :-( My NZ 2 cents worth, which is not very much in anyones currency :-) < Graham Oliver __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/
Received on Monday, 18 December 2000 20:11:40 UTC