Re: J the Z on CSS transparency and Jaws

At 07:22 AM 3/17/2003, James Craig wrote:
> > I have some serious doubts about whether a screen reader should be trying
> > to decide what parts of a style sheet are OK to obey, and what parts it
> > will ignore.
>
>What about if aural media is defined, it will ignore anything that is not
>explicitly labled "aural" or "all"? Aural media could be defined in a
><style> or <link/> element, as well as with and "@media" rule.

The earlier point in this thread though was that JAWS is an add-on to a 
visual UA, not an aural UA as such.  So there is a larger issue of whether 
or not it should be following aural rules in the first place, and arguments 
both ways.

Clearly the output of JAWS is aural, but its function is to read the visual 
output of the UA.  So the UA follows the screen or all rules, and comes up 
with a visual display to be read.

Should JAWS support and apply aural rules on its own?
Should JAWS receive aural information from the UA and act on that, and if 
the UA doesn't support aural CSS then nothing further happens with aural rules?

>Of course,
>this brings up the question, "If certain styles do not have a labeled media,
>should that default be 'all' or 'screen'?" I believe it should be "all",

All.  Why would the bias be to screen?

>but
>I also don't believe screen readers should pay attention to visual styles
>like display or visibility.

I believe we should expect they will, since their function is reading the 
visual display as the UA sees it.  The question is, should JAWS and/or the 
UA be able to support aural rules as well?

Bill Mason
Accessible Internet
w3c@accessibleinter.net
http://www.accessibleinter.net/

Received on Monday, 17 March 2003 12:35:38 UTC