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RE: WAI needs to rethink and revisit

for

From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: May 21, 2002 5:33AM

Exactly my point. However, becuse the W3C's WAI Guidelines have been
"imported" lock, stock and barrel into a larger set of "Standards"
(Governement of Canada - Common Look and Feel), he is using the actual
wording to "wiggle" out of the spirit of the document. I disagree with
this, or course, which is why I am asking/urging that the wording of WCAG
2.0 be very carefully constructed. While the W3C cannot make these
guidelines "standards", other organizations can and will. I believe that
most countries in the EU are also looking at making the WAI Guidelines
government "standards" (Euro-listers? Any news?)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin Spruill [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> Sent: May 20, 2002 10:26 AM
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: RE: WAI needs to rethink and revisit (was Printable
> characterbetween adjacent links)
>
>
> I'm confused - the WAI recommendation is to use relative font sizes, but
> your colleague cites that recommendation as a reason to use fixed fonts?
> This recommendation reads to me as saying:
>
> 1. Use relative fonts
> 2. If you choose to use fixed fonts instead, validate to assure that
> the content is accessible
>
> Seems to me the first part trumps the second... hence my confusion over
> the the justification in using fixed font size. (Will we ever be done
> with this "argument") :)
>
> The WAI is in fact reviewing all of the WCAG 1.0 guidelines - you can
> review the WCAG 2.0 draft at the site, wherein a lot of the things that
> have been discussed on the list, have been revised.
>
> HK
>
> Kevin Spruill
> National Library of Medicine
> OCCS
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> (301) 402-9708
> (301) 402-0367 (fax)
> www.nlm.nih.gov
>
> >>> <EMAIL REMOVED> 05/17/02 09:02AM >>>
> Hear, hear!!
>
> I am currently embroiled in a debate with an associate over the use (or
>
> non-use) of fixed font sizes. His argument is that if he does not use
> fixed
> font sizes in his stlyesheets that the "display" becomes unpredictable
> in
> different browers/OS implementations. He points to the WAI Guidelines
> wording as justification: (This statement is found in the Guidelines
> ( http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/ )) "3.4 Use relative rather than
> absolute
> units in mark-up language attribute values and style sheet property
> values.
> [Priority 2] For example, in CSS, use 'em' or percentage lengths rather
>
> than 'pt' or 'cm', which are absolute units. If absolute units are
> used,
> validate that the rendered content is usable"
>
> While I feel comfortable in debating the folly of this mind set it does
> open
> the debate up, as the WAI wording is counterproductive and, IMHO
> against the
> spirit of Universal Accessibility.
>
> How can we, as committed developers and advocates, influence the W3C to
>
> revisit their wording? Thoughts?
>
> JF
>
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Michael R. Burks [ mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> > Sent: May 16, 2002 9:35 AM
> > To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > Subject: RE: Printable character between adjacent links
> >
> >
> > Just one more reason that the WAI needs to rethink and revisit
> > much of what
> > they recommend.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Mike Burks
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Prof Norm Coombs [ mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> > Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 8:57 AM
> > To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > Subject: RE: Printable character between adjacent links
> >
> >
> > As a blind user of the Internet,
> > I hate hate hate those characters between links that WAI thinks
> > is so nice.
> >
> > At 11:31 AM 5/15/02 +0300, you wrote:
> > >philip steven lanier wrote:
> > >
> > > > Adjacent image-based links can unambiguously be made visually
> distinct
> > > > from each other. Consider a row of circular "button"
> > > > graphics with text or icons in them.
> > >
> > >Yes, that's one possibility I had in my mind. Sorry for not
> > making it clear
> > >that borders and margins were just _examples_ of the visual
> presentation
> > >features that could be used. Yet another possibility - for images
> that
> > >essentially contain text - would be to use alternating background
> colors
> > >that are sufficiently different.
> > >
> > >The basic problem to avoid is having a row of links like
> > > foo bar zap blurp more foo more bar and so on
> > >in image format, with no obvious (and I mean _obvious_ to
> > virtually anyone
> > >who sees it) indication of where each link ends or even how many
> links
> > there
> > >are. A useful rule of thumb: the user should be able to recognize
> them as
> > >separate links without knowing the topic or even the language used.
> It
> > >happens too often that people rely on orthography like capital
> letters or
> > >even recognizing _phrases_, or other "higher level protocol" issues.
>
> > >
> > >--
> > >Jukka Korpela
> > >TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehitt