- From: <tina@greytower.net>
- Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 13:24:53 +0200 (CEST)
- To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
On 27 Jun, Tim Roberts wrote: > <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"; charset="ISO-8859-1"> > > What are the implications to the accessibility of my XHTML through using this. > Please keep the comments constructive as this is something I want to look > into, and not to spend hours debating about. I would like to see the whole > story, so I can make an informed decision about my methods. To be honest: I doubt we share iterpretation of "constructive". However, let's put up a few scenarios. (a) An author writes a document using the typical tag soup. The webserver - probably because it defaults to doing so - serves all .html and .htm files with the content-type "text/html". The document *looks* more or less as he wants it in IE, and he is therefore happy. (b) The author now reads an article that states "accessibility is important!" and "XHTML is inherently accessible". The server sends it out as "text/html" as usual. The author doesn't bother about validation, 'cause that thing over at validator.w3.org just blabbers about details (actual quote). The document works exactly the same in IE - it error-corrects the HTML it gets. He is happy, and believes he has done his for accessibility. (c) Now the author reads some more, and gets to understand what accessibility IS about. He corrects his code, makes in shiny, clean, structured with all the trimmings and *good* alt texts. He spends some time getting it to work with CSS in IE et al. It now looks exactly the same - and it's still error-corrected into HTML by most user-agents. (d) But wait. He learns more, and finds that in order to be standards compliant, crossing that 't', dotting that 'i', he should send the XHTML document as "application/xhtml+xml". This he now does - and finds to his horror that the accessibility benefits he has lead to believe exist with XHTML now consist of *IE wanting to save his file*. (Default setting, IE 6, Win 98). So does Lynx. Confusion reins. Wasn't XHTML more accessible, he asks. (e) Our author goes back to the source, and re-reads the words of the acccessibility experts: "... the inherent accessibility of XHTML". But noone can see his documents - save Mozilla and Opera users - now that he IS doing as he is told, and using XHTML. Sic transit gloria mundi. -- - Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies tina@greytower.net http://www.greytower.net/ [+46] 0708 557 905
Received on Friday, 27 June 2003 07:25:19 UTC