Re: Simplicity of Concept

> Perhaps the W3C could run some usability tests.  Take a piece of the spec 
> and try different names and structures.  See how designers do.  Use both 

I don't believe that HTML is aimed at designers [1].  It is aimed at
communicators.  Any test should exclude art school design graduates and
advertising executives, and include technical authors, librarians, club
secretaries, property surveyours, people who draft legal documents, etc.

> comprehend and easier to find.  It is metadata.  So are section headings.  

For example, to a designer, and to a magazine or newspaper publisher,
headings are a way of breaking up long blocks of text, they are often
styling rather than metadata, and bear little resemblance to what
is in the text.

One of the compromises in designing a markup language which isn't for
theoretical linguists is that text, like headings and sub-headings,
that users would include in the text, even if they didn't style the
document at all need to be considered as content.  You want to support
a model in which you can write the document as plain text then mark it
up.

[1] Note you used "designers" to mean both authors (with the 
connotation of graphic designers, or web browser based application
developers) and also for the specifiers of HTML.

Received on Friday, 27 February 2004 02:51:42 UTC