Re: screen readers for macs - also bobby question

putting info in edit fields can be handy if you are using an environment
that does not announce that you are over an edit field.  tell the person to
erace what is there and put their info in place of it or have the field a
certain length if you can so that as they begin to type at the beginning of
the field, they replace the data.  it is only confusing when it is
redundant, otherwise, it is extremely helpful.  I do not know how long it
will remain so.

Visual cues for link separation can help readability.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Woolley" <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 5:45 AM
Subject: Re: screen readers for macs - also bobby question



> example 1: form entry field should contain a default
> text.  that's not always practical and in my own
> experience with user tests can confuse users.

I've always wondered why people feel the need to do this.  This is not
an accessibility ghetto thing; it is something that was introduced in
mainstream web pages, but not done in the Visual Basic applications
which the design is trying to emulate.

> example 2: for purely decorative images it has become
> general practise to use empty alt attributes.  that is
> just to satisfy bobby and wai.  how is that more
> accessible than a missing alt attribute?

A missing alt makes the HTML invalid.  I think the idea was that requiring
the attribute would make people think about it, but, of course, people just
use authoring tools that insert alt="", alt="<value of src attribute>",
etc., or don't validate anyway.

>
> example 3: links should be separated by printable
> characters (this is one of the 'until user agents...'
> points).  so web designer often insert the pipe
> character and then make it invisible with display:none
> in the stylesheet.  that adds a lot of wasteful code
> to a page.

I'm not quite sure of the point, but I would suggest that this process
leaves you with an accessibility/usabiliity problem, unfixed.  I.E.
it is hiding the problem from the checker without removing it.

Received on Saturday, 8 March 2003 09:21:28 UTC