W3C home > Mailing lists > Public > www-validator@w3.org > August 2002

Re: target attribute of anchor tags

From: Philip TAYLOR [PC87S/O-XP] <P.Taylor@Rhul.Ac.Uk>
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 15:04:37 +0100
Message-ID: <3D527A75.EA63FD4B@Rhul.Ac.Uk>
To: Thanasis Kinias <tkinias@optimalco.com>
CC: Liam Quinn <liam@htmlhelp.com>, Daniel Terry <rrowv@usa.net>, www-validator@w3.org



Thanasis Kinias wrote:

[snip]

> If you are in the United States, you also have Federal civil rights
> legislation (the Americans with Disabilities Act) to consider.  Forcing
> the opening of new browser windows is disorienting and confusing to
> blind users relying on screen readers, Braille displays, and similar
> adaptive technology.  Using such a technique unecessarily is illegally
> discriminatory against people with disabilities.

Oh, come on : I'm totally in favour of  "accessibility for all", but 
if that means that (e.g.) Windows users would be forced to use an 
interface in which each application opened (by default) in the same 
window as any previously open application, and that such users would 
be forced to right-click and select "Open application in new window", 
then I think the world would have come to a pretty sorry state.  

Note that I'm talking about Windows /qua/ Windows here, not about web
browsers under Windows, but if the latter are forced to open everything
in the same window so as not to disadvantage the blind and partially
sighted, then logically the former would be as well.

Philip Taylor, RHBNC
Received on Thursday, 8 August 2002 10:08:00 UTC

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