Re: [WebAIM] More data on accesskeys (New article written Nov. 1)

John Foliot wrote:
> David Woolley wrote:
> > 
> > 3.  I would result in uniform behaviour (for a single browser) across
> >     sites, which would be rejected by designers because it frustrated
> >     branding.
> 
> Outside of an obvious anti-commercial slant, please expand on how uniform
> browser behaviour would frustrate "branding".  What makes you think that
> designers would be against a uniform, predictable browser behaviour, given
> the largest complaints generally center around browser incompatibilities?

In what I described above, there would still be browser incompatibilities
as the browser behaviour would only be consistent in terms of semantics.
Designers don't want consistency of semantics, they want consistency of
presentation, and they don't want the presentation to be constrained
by the browser or standards.  (Although I am primarily a consumer of
web sites, I often overhear marketing requests for particular visual
behaviours, I never hear them for particular semantics to be represented.)

Implementing link rev=contents in a correct semantic way would result in
the contents appearing in the location and  style appropriate to the browser
and the viewing platform, which is good usability, not in the location
and style chosen by the marketing department, which is good branding.

Alternatively you would need much more sophisticated styling langauges, to
re-integrate the navigation and real content parts, which would probably
result in style sheet bloat to compensate for any saving by factoring out
the contents page.

Received on Saturday, 25 November 2006 09:15:32 UTC