- From: Patrick Lauke <P.H.Lauke@salford.ac.uk>
- Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:32:41 -0000
- To: "WAI Interest Group" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> Joachim Andersson > What I was saying is that if a user agent doesn't support an element > or an attribute, that is in no way a reason not to use it. If it is useful > in its declaration in a specification and if it doesn't present a usability > issue like longdesc, it should be used as specified. The user agents will > hopefully get to a point where they can handle these functions properly. Unfortunately, although I agree with the principle, it's very tough in a commercial setting to justify additional quality assurance, training and development for features that are simply not implemented just yet. It's a hard sell to managers..."the standard says we should be using X, for accessibility, although at the moment no user agent actually supports it, but in future they hopefully will". And it then becomes a chicken and egg problem: user agents will most likely only support it once there's a critical mass of pages speculatively using these features, as otherwise it won't add value to their product and by extension to their customers; web developers in a commercial setting will most likely only implement them once user agents show actual support. The idealist in me agrees that the cycle needs to be broken, and that we should use features per spec even when they're not used in any real user agent, hoping that in future they will...but the pragmatist just knows that, unless you can sell your boss/management to the idea of "we're doing it, nobody benefits from it now, but in future they will", it's unlikely... P ________________________________ Patrick H. Lauke Web Editor Enterprise & Development University of Salford Room 113, Faraday House Salford, Greater Manchester M5 4WT UK T +44 (0) 161 295 4779 webmaster@salford.ac.uk www.salford.ac.uk A GREATER MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY
Received on Friday, 28 November 2008 11:33:26 UTC