- From: Joe Clark <joeclark@joeclark.org>
- Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 13:01:40 -0400 (EDT)
- To: WAI-IG <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
>> These rollovers are designed to show extra text/images away from >> the actual link. Eric Meyer calls them pop-ups but that term >> doesn't seem right either. For an example take a look > They have the negative characteristics of popup windows No, they do *not*. Eric's CSS rollovers are not popup windows any more than pigeons are gorillas. One of Eric's effects causes text or an image to appear somewhere else on the same page during rollover (and conceivably also on focus, which I hope will cause malcontents to find something else to complain about, since both keyboard and mouse events can trigger focus). To reiterate: The effects *appear on the same page*. There are no popup windows. Over and over and over again, any use of existing specs that provides for accessibility while also improving visual style is immediately decried on this list. Examples? * Text inside GIFs. A picture of text inside a GIF complete with alt and title is accessible; the claimed drawbacks of screen-magnification software are unfounded because only the unreleased Mac OS X 10.2 screen magnifier blows up *actual* (primitive, non-GIF) text from the underlying TrueType or PostScript font file, meaning that magnified real text and magnified GIF text look equally bad in every other magnification system. alt and title are sufficient to explicate even entire sentences rendered as images. You may not like it, but designers do, and their opinion counts as much as yours, as long as those designers take the time to provide alt and title. The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it inaccessible. * Images, complete with alt texts, sitting inside <hx> tags. Heading tags can enclose inline elements. <img> is an inline element. Either you want us to conform to published formal grammars (_pace_ WCAG 3.2; [X]HTML, which permits inline elements inside <hx>, is a published formal grammar) or you don't. Here in the real world, images can act as headings. Want an example? Think of a Web page reviewing all the actors who have played James Bond in the movies, under which are given various fun and interesting statistics, or simply biographical précis. Who says the actors' head*shots* cannot act as head*ers*? WAI's impenetrable word-centric obsession needs to loosen a little; WAI needs to retire once and for all its ongoing efforts to remove, invalidate, minimize, and legislate against images on Web pages (except inasmuch as the exact opposite is countenanced, i.e., requiring images on every single page for the rest of time because a few learning-disabled people might allegedly find the page marginally less confusing). * Graphical imagemaps with every alt and title filled in. Charles, for example, continues to ride the hobbyhorse that plain-text navigation (the only kind *anyone* *ever* really needs, right?) should sit inside <map></map>. It is insisted-- typically for WAI-- that, because a construct exists for a technique nobody wants to use, the technique everybody does use, which can be made perfectly accessible, should be discouraged or portrayed as unnecessary in the first place. Who could *possibly* want, let alone need, pretty pictures as navigation aids? Well, to answer that question, please start by explaining why <map> can include images even in XHTML 2.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-csImgMap.html#s_csImgMapmodule>. If it's so harmful, why is it still legal? * And now, pure-CSS rollovers. They can be triggered by keyboard or mouse and are an attractive, standards-compliant addition to contemporary Web pages created by designers who *want* their pages to be attractive and standards-compliant. There is no accessibility harm caused by CSS rollovers; to the contrary, they actually comply with WCAG 3.1 and 3.3. And finally, Eric Meyer has done a nontrivial amount of work for me and with me in investigating the accessibility ramifications of various CSS issues. You'll read all about it in due course. One more time, everybody: Web designers take a dim view of accessibility because accessibility advocates cling to primitive, outdated, and clearly harmful biases against anything whatsoever that makes a page look nice to a sighted visitor. Many visitors with disabilities have perfect vision and appreciate attractive pages as much as nondisabled visitors do. For the umpteenth time, *get over it*. We *will not* achieve widespread accessibility until WAI learns to explain how accessibility can be included in a visually sophisticated site. -- Joe Clark joeclark@joeclark.org Accessibility: <http://joeclark.org/access/> Weblogs and articles: <http://joeclark.org/weblogs/> <http://joeclark.org/writing/> | <http://fawny.org>
Received on Sunday, 11 August 2002 13:03:48 UTC