- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 09:35:52 -0800
- To: "GS" <junkmail.gs@c2i.net>
- Cc: <www-style@w3.org>
On Friday, February 21, 2003, at 05:28 AM, GS wrote: > 6) Freedom of speech > The web has made it easy for everyone to express opinions, > or make their artwork public. > This line should be supported one step further. > Let the designer choose the design philosophy of his document. > It is his "right" to do it "wrong". > Actually there are a number of cases in which it is not the "right" of the web designer to do it "wrong" -- I'm specifically thinking here of accessibility concerns, where doing things by a "WYSIWYG philosophy" can prevent people with certain disabilities from accessing content. For certain types of content there are legal "rights" of the audience that outweigh the needs of the designer to place herself and her artistic expression/"freedom of speech" at the center of the equation. For many other types of content there are strong moral reasons for being concerned with accessibility rather than just with the desires of the creator. There's a danger in reducing all forms of web design to merely a masturbatory exercise, whereby the "designer" is able to "express herself" but nobody else can get any value from it. If that's what you want, you might as well design for yourself and keep it on your computer's hard drive. --Kynn
Received on Friday, 21 February 2003 12:33:51 UTC