Re: Bold vs Strong

We’re definitely getting very abstract here. Vinil, could you give us
specific examples of items that were called out by the tester as being
incorrect? I think there might be some false positives in that report
and/or there could be cases where we would have another recommended way of
emphasizing text if it really does need to be emphasized.

David Ashleydale
On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 9:01 AM Pyatt, Elizabeth J <ejp10@psu.edu> wrote:

> This is a good example of why I think we should re-think this issue.
>
> There are uses of bold and italics which have nothing to do with emphasis.
> Math is one (and there is a VAR tag), and another are cases like , citation
> (i.e. the CITE tag), italics for foreign language words (no tag yet) and so
> forth.
>
> VAR tag  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/var
>
> Elizabeth
>
> P.S. Today, I think MathML is one answer for this particular case, but I’m
> not sure if it would cover everything.
>
> > On Aug 7, 2018, at 9:24 AM, Duff Johnson <duff@duff-johnson.com> wrote:
> >
> > There’s an aspect that I’ve not seen covered in the discussion so far on
> this point.
> >
> > There are many use cases (especially in STEM publications) in which
> italics and bold have specific uses that are announced in the document.
> >
> > For example, italics may be used to indicate values. Bold may be used to
> indicate dictionary key names.
> >
> > Discerning the meaning of the content without reference to bold and
> italics usage in such cases could lead to confusion. Here’s a (slightly
> hacked for effect) example:
> >
> > "If IT is present and its value is not Stamp, it's Name shall not be
> present. "
> >
> > Substituting <strong> for <b> or <i> would just.. blow all this up, and
> make such documents far harder - in principle -  for AT users to read, no?
> >
> > Duff.
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Aug 7, 2018, at 05:52, Userite <richard@userite.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear Vinil,
> >>
> >> Richard Ishida (W3C) wrote an article on this issue in 2010 (see
> https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-b-and-i-tags ).
> >>
> >> His quick answer was  as follows - “You should always bear in mind that
> the content of a b element may not always be bold, and that of an i element
> may not always be italic. The actual style is dependent on the CSS style
> definitions. You should also bear in mind that bold and italic may not be
> the preferred style for content in certain languages.
> >> You should not use b and i tags if there is a more descriptive and
> relevant tag available. If you do use them, it is usually better to add
> class attributes that describe the intended meaning of the markup, so that
> you can distinguish one use from another. “
> >> Furthermore the HTML5 specification states that “The b element
> represents a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian
> purposes without conveying any extra importance and with no implication of
> an alternate voice or mood”
> >> As a result I believe that your client has a strong case for asking you
> to replace the <b> element with <strong> or <em> or <cite>.
> >>
> >> Be very wary of anyone who claims that, because there is no specified
> failure criteria, they can use an element in a situation where it is not
> “best practice”. just because everyone else is doing it.
> >>
> >> <b> enhances the visual effect, but <strong> enhances the meaning as
> well.
> >>
> >> Regards
> >> Richard Warren
> >> Technical Manager
> >> Website Auditing Ltd
> >> www.userite.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> From: Vinil Peter
> >> Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2018 4:10 PM
> >> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> >> Subject: Bold vs Strong
> >>
> >> Dear colleagues,
> >>
> >> I have been asked to provide my thoughts on a debate on the use of bold
> <b> and strong <strong> for one of my clients. The client's internal
> accessibility testing team marked all the instances where <b> was used as
> errors and recommended to change them to <strong> so that screen readers
> read out the text with added emphasis. This has brought their quality and
> compliance scores down drastically. The client's developers are unhappy
> about this and claim that they should not be marked down as there is no
> clear guideline or fine print that mandates use of <strong> over <b>.
> Moreover, W3C has not deprecated <b> yet and it's usage is still permitted.
> <b> has been in use since ages and asking to replace all bold text with
> strong is like declaring that  use of <b> should be banned henceforth.
> >>
> >> I am planning to give my recommendation to use <strong> in headers or
> functionality names etc. if the text is bold as per  design, while it is
> still fair to allow use of <b> for other bold text. The 'appropriate usage'
> of bold or strong is finally the designer's call as there is no clear
> guideline.
> >>
> >> Is my recommendation correct or am I missing something? What your
> thoughts and have you come across any such debate?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Vinil Peter, PMP
> >
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
> Accessibility IT Consultant
> Teaching and Learning with Technology
> Penn State University
> ejp10@psu.edu, (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office)
>
> The 300 Building, 112
> 304 West College Avenue
> State College, PA 16801
> accessibility.psu.edu
>
>