- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 14:04:02 -0400 (EDT)
- To: "'www-amaya@w3.org'" <www-amaya@w3.org>
For a lot of users, missing ALT is the single most critical problem in being able to use a website. That is why it is required by the DTD, and is one example of why validating to the DTD is as important as working with browsers. Another argument is 280 million mobile phones. At Christmas time almost none were web-capable. (Actually that is not quite true - there a re a large number of people who use the web by telephone through gateway services). Early this year about a quarter of a million were. The figure is expected to reach 100 million some time in the next two or three years (depends on who you ask), and these devices use a wide range of software, with the only common features being that it isn't either IE or Netscape. Another is accessibility to people with disabilities - in many countries this is a legal requirement for large content providers (in the US for government and government funded providers. In Australia for people who offer services, including but not limited to sales, recreation, education, ...) and often people are usng things other than NS/IE for access. (Hence the work that is being done to make Amaya itself more accessible, and do things like require ALTs in images/image map areas... Charles McCN On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Dave J Woolley wrote: All the failures are more serious than a missing DOCTYPE or missing ALTs, except for UPS. NB a common argument I here is that there is no advantage in conforming to the DTD if your page works with IE4/5 and NS 4.x. --Charles McCathieNevile mailto:charles@w3.org phone: +1 617 258 0992 http://www.w3.org/People/Charles W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI MIT/LCS - 545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139, USA
Received on Wednesday, 8 September 1999 14:04:03 UTC