Re: When reviewing a site with CSS disabled, "sea of white" appears: is this a real accessibility issue?

On 30/11/14 03:23, Adam Cooper wrote:
> The question is who chooses to disable or which user agents don't
> support CSS?
>
> I’d be very interested to see some dependable statistics on this.
>

The main purpose of this test is check whether the pages are written in 
HTML, or just using the HTML vocabulary.

 From an accessibility point of view, and given that most authors only 
provide visual styling, the main benefit is for the blind, although more 
generally, proper HTML semantics mean that a browser can re-target the 
page for other disabilities (e.g. pick out key navigation features, for 
those confused by the complex visual structure, or insert large guard 
bands around links, for those with poor motor control - the lack of such 
tools probably indicates the lack of well written HTML, rather than the 
lack of a market).  (It also makes mechanical processing easier, 
although, unlike the with the original concept, current authors have 
mixed feelings towards this; they want Google to find their page, but 
they don't want the information to be extractable.)

Whilst I've mainly turned it off recently to get round "subscribe to us" 
popups, I have, in the past, turned it off to get round particularly 
badly styled pages, or pages that require a version of IE that is not 
supported by the version of Windows I was using.

I do remember a case where I was frustrated that Android doesn't allow 
you to turn off CSS and the only way of making the page usable would 
have been to do so, although I forget which page that was.

The proper work flow for communications, is to decide the logical 
structure of what you want to say, then flesh it out with words.  You 
should be able to write the HMTL at this point.  Next you think about 
layout and visual effects, and add the CSS. Finally, you might want to 
tweak the wording, or re-order the structure, to improve the final 
presentation. Most pages seem to be designed the opposite way round, 
possibly with the logical structure never being considered.

Received on Sunday, 30 November 2014 10:55:42 UTC