- From: Jon Gunderson <jongund@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
- Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 08:28:35 -0500
- To: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>, Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
- Cc: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
Just so I have this straight. 1. Is the discussion trying to determine if proprietary elements like <BGSOUND> is considered decorative or style rather than content? 2. Is there any other markup the user agent can recognize that can produce a background sound (other than use of scripting techniques)? Jon At 10:34 PM 7/24/2000 -0400, Charles McCathieNevile wrote: >This ties to an issue of whether the UA should provide repair functionality, >and in particular whether it should provide access to all content. For mine, >the answers are yes - unless we discover that authors and authoring tools >have suddenly got everything right and fixed all their content so that there >is genuine seperation of style and content, the tools should encourage it, >athe authors should practise it, and the User Agents should make use of, but >NOT rely on it. > >This is Al's oft-stated be strict in what you send and tolerant in what you >accept. > >Charles McCN > >On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Al Gilman wrote: > > > 1. I did not mean to suggest any change in the separate and simpler rules > for sonicons and similar "short sounds." I am sorry if something I said > gave that impression. > > 2. The proposed exception is predicated on the theory that the "background > sound" feature is by nature decorative. > > So far as I can tell, when used, this sound track is usually the only sound > in town. Sound is perceived alongside sight. Thus the 'background' in > "background sound" does not have the same meaning as in "background image." > Background images are designed to defer to the foreground content laid > over them. Background sounds, in the large, are the whole audio component > of the [multimedia] experience designed into a page. There is usually no > foreground audio for the background sound to defer to. The media space > created by "background sound" invites more complex and independent > information complementing the visual content of a page. I can reasonably > imagine programming Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech as a > background sound where I could not imagine using the manuscript draft of > that speech as a background image. The significance of a "background > sound," in the unusual case where someone has taken the trouble to provide > one, is more likely to be comparable to a large featured image than to a > background image. > > If it were natural to use only decorative sound tracks in this HTML role, > we could then move on to the question as to whether this exception to the > rule simplifies or complicates the browser builder's job. But the > exception is predicated on the idea that background sounds are, or should > be, limited to decorative and expendable content. I would like the group > and the WAI to consider if this is the best way to view this feature of the > web page medium. > > Al > > > >-- >Charles McCathieNevile mailto:charles@w3.org phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136 >W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI >Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053 >Postal: GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001, Australia Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services MC-574 College of Applied Life Studies University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign 1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820 Voice: (217) 244-5870 Fax: (217) 333-0248 E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua
Received on Tuesday, 25 July 2000 09:27:36 UTC