RE: Ouch!!! (was: RE: Nielsen's Latest Alertbox & a personal prot est)

Sorry, been away for a bit - actually, not that sorry it was a great escape.


On what you say below, I am not advocating following rules I don't
understand. In fact, in my own websites I could just shove in an empty
string into the default text part of my search form and claim WAI level 3
compliance as Mark Pilgrim does but why bother? I don't see the point in
default text in a search box from a usability perspective and I see even
less point in putting an empty string in there just so you score higher with
a compliance robot.

What I really meant was that although I have 11 years of experience as an
interaction designer I have never designed anything for people with any
kinds of disabilities specifically so I am inclined to follow these rules
more than others because I find it hard to walk a mile in the shoes of a
blind user - I don't know how screen reading devices really work. So,
following learned guidelines, where they are easily accomodated into my
designs, does not seem to be a big deal. 

Bobby also makes a pretty good job of explaining a lot of the why behind the
things suggested.

Carl

-----Original Message-----
From: John Foliot - WATS.ca [mailto:foliot@wats.ca] 
Sent: 11 November 2003 18:21
To: Myhill, Carl S (PS, GENS); w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; Jesper Tverskov
Subject: Ouch!!! (was: RE: Nielsen's Latest Alertbox & a personal protest)

[snip]

If any checking tool recommends that you do something, find out why... there
are loads of people on this list who would be only too happy to expand on a
topic, or offer reasoning as to why a certain "recommendation" be
implemented.

[snip]

Received on Monday, 17 November 2003 09:27:56 UTC