WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Welcome to the WebAIM Discussion List

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From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Feb 7, 2005 10:51AM

> My point was that from a usability point of view (as well as
> accessibility)
> there should not be a need for the user to pick and load different
> versions
> according to need, when we already have mechanisms to handle this
> automatically, (even if they are a bit weak on PDA's.)

That's a valid point, but weren't you also the one saying that
print-friendly versions aren't useful for those that need to maintain ad
impressions?

It sounds like you are advocating for a page that accomodates readability,
accessibility, marketability, and visual design all at once. Sometimes
that'd doable, but often times it's not.

Ie, Bob in marketing sold 100,000 ad impressions for the 200px = 200px
animated flash banner. Sam in branding insists that the rainbow colored
masthead be retained on each page. Greg in IA wants to make sure that the
large site navigation bar appears on each page for easy navigation. Mark,
the customer, wants a way to print the page without wasting all of his ink
and paper. Mary, in sales, hate's the flash ads. Chip, a customer, preferes
to read on-screen and doesn't like being distracted with the
ads/banners/navigation.

So, in the real world, sometimes using a 'print friendly' version is the
solution. You can either try and please everyone with one layout (which is
silly) or you can accomodate more specific requests with some functionality
on the page.

> If you want a page that prints well, then style that page so that it
> prints
> well, not a copy that the user has to know and find for himself.

You can do both.

-Darrel