Fwd: Minutes of the UAWG F2F Day 2 28 August 2013

Wayne's answer

Cheers,
Kim

Kim Patch
Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Wayne Dick <wayneedick@gmail.com>
> Date: August 29, 2013, 2:37:30 PM PDT
> To: Kim Patch <kim@redstartsystems.com>
> Subject: Re: Minutes of the UAWG F2F Day 2 28 August 2013
> 
> Hi Kim,
> Nice to hear from you.
> 
> The lack of external style access is a defect in the PDF Reader, and
> it is the main reason why it is not completely accessible to people
> with low vision at the present time.  Actually the PDF Reader fails
> (1), (2) and (3) of my operations.
> 
> PDF has a tag system that would give access to many elements.  It is
> not as robust as HTML, but with external access through a style
> language, PDF could give passable access.
> 
> The problem with PDF (and HTML to a lesser degree) is a dependence on
> the semantically vacuous tags like <span> used for formatting only.
> This method dominates what is considered to be accessible PDF.  No
> clue as to an appropriate style substitution exists.  It is beyond the
> scope of any UA to sort this out. However, external style sheets that
> would allow assignment of meaningful style to semantically useful
> elements, and nullification to semantically vacuous elements would
> give a passable transcription.
> 
> I hope that helps.
> 
> Wayne
> 
> On 8/29/13, Kim Patch <kim@redstartsystems.com> wrote:
>> Thanks for the quick answer.
>> Question: how would you address user agents that have no style sheets, e.g.
>> a PDF reader?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Kim
>> 
>> Kim Patch
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Aug 29, 2013, at 12:48 PM, Wayne Dick <wayneedick@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Shawn's Conundrum (Mine Too)
>>> 
>>> There is a serious issue as to the User Agent's responsibility
>>> regarding element level text customization.  User's need to see
>>> differences in formatting to understand the organization of the
>>> document they are reading, but how much should a user agent intervene
>>> in this function.  I think none.
>>> 
>>> I am convinced that user agents should only have global text
>>> customization commands.  These should honor user settings unless users
>>> override the setting explicitly. Size is one exception. You have
>>> addressed that already.
>>> 
>>> Now, how do we get element level accommodation.  The answer is the
>>> same way everyone gets it.  Turn of author styles, linearize, and
>>> apply user styles. Opera already implements user stylesheets this way.
>>> That is nice but the user should have a choice.
>>> 
>>> The Answer:
>>> 
>>> The functionality: The user should have the option to (1) Turn of
>>> author style, (2) Linearize (not data tables) and (3) Apply a user
>>> style to the page obtained after (1) and (2) are applied.
>>> 
>>> Customized style sheets for users will become a standard form of
>>> assistive technology for users. Most users will not make them
>>> themselves.  They will use something like my T-Rx.  What the user
>>> needs is browser support to apply these style sheets to clean data.
>>> 
>>> Incidentally, iPad already can apply user stylesheets, they just ruin
>>> the therapeutic value by not allowing change to link colors.  Other
>>> e-readers are less robust, but they still could provide a reasonable
>>> style-sheet access, and they should.  I have found no truly effective
>>> e-reader for low vision, and I have used almost all of them.
>>