Re: Success criteria speak for themselves

The primary issue with the example is that CSS is used to communicate information without structure. If a user with low vision uses a custom style sheet, the meaning communicated via CSS will be lost.   You can make the same argument for headings.  The perceived decision to require structure for headings and flow elements but not for phrasing elements is the concern Wayne is addressing. 

Jonathan 

> On Feb 18, 2014, at 3:58 PM, Olaf Drümmer <olaflist@callassoftware.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Wayne,
> 
> in all politeness I would like to bring up some thoughts regarding this part of your message:
> 
>> On 18 Feb 2014, at 21:09, Wayne Dick <waynedick@knowbility.org> wrote:
>> 
>> The second HTML encoding simply italicizes the word hypotenuse using the HTML code <span style=”font-style: italic;”>hypotenuse</span>. It relies on human intelligence and fully sighted human vision to conclude that an italicized word within the context of a defining sentence identifies a definition relationship.  The fact that the particular italicized word represents a defined term within a definition relationship could not be determined by a program, because the program would have to understand English to determine that the author had defined a term. This is beyond the scope of computer programs.
> 
> [1] nothing wrong with relying on human intelligence - or am I missing something?
> 
> [2] a non-sighted user could be presented with the fact that to some content an attribute is applied that italicises the enclosed text, and thus sets it apart from the surrounding content; this is about the same amount of information a sighted user gets to know when consuming the content
> 
> [3] a sighted user would not benefit from the presence of the dfn tag, unless it is specifically presented to him - which also is not typical in most usage scenarios
> 
> [4] it does not really matter whether a program can determine whether some content is term to be defined or not - what is relevant is whether a person  - with or without disabilities - can access enough information to determine the meaning of the content, including the fact that a term might be subjected to a definition.
> 
> Disclaimer: I am not arguing for or against the meaningfulness or usefulness of tags in general, or specifically the dfn tag. I just disagree with some specificities in your reasoning.
> 
> Olaf
>