RE: !important

More philosophical ramblings; executive summary: "client side CSS is
good, but it doesn't solve the problem as much as we'd like."

At 09:32 AM 4/10/2001, Emmanuelle Gutiérrez y Restrepo wrote:
>Hi all,
>This is the reason for which I have begun to write about the responsibility
>of the users regarding the accessibility. Because most of the users are
>passive and they don't know that, with their navigators and with other
>existent utilities in their operating system one, they can change the way in
>that the pages appear Web and to make it so that it is they comfortable to
>use them.

In my opinion, while the ability in CSS to override creator styles is
a nice thing, I feel that it's not a good "solution" because it requires
users to understand how configure their software in a way that is not
very apparent nor easy to do.  This introduces an extra hurdle to
accessibility -- "hi, user, you need to learn CSS to write yourself a
stylesheet" or even "hi, user, you need to learn how to choose your
own stylesheet after downloading it" if using a library of CSS written
by someone else -- and puts too much _technical_ burden on the end
users.

Web site creators/programmers/designers are assumed to be more technical
than web site users, on the average, and thus technical requirements
should be pushed off to the designer whenever possible.  Well, really
the job should be done by the browser programmers, but failing that,
it should be the burden of the site operator/designer.  The _task_
of web surfing is less technical than the _task_ of web authoring,
and alternate stylesheet management is definitely a technical task
at this stage.

This is why, while I applaud anyone who uses their own stylesheet to
change web sites to be more easily used, I feel the true solution
to the problem must be addressed at the server level so that a
solution can be delivered for everyone.

--Kynn



-- 
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
Technical Developer Liaison
Reef North America
Tel +1 949-567-7006
________________________________________
ACCESSIBILITY IS DYNAMIC. TAKE CONTROL.
________________________________________
http://www.reef.com

Received on Tuesday, 10 April 2001 12:43:57 UTC