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Re: address tag

for

From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Feb 20, 2007 3:40AM

Jukka Korpela wrote:
> I have no idea of what you mean by that, but the text at the
> bottom, "Apple iCal and Thunderbird users can subscribe",
> looks like discrimination, not accessibility.

You need something that understands the iCal format to subscribe, which
currently doesn't include Outlook. Given that Outlook doesn't support
subscribing to external calendars by any known standard, I would hardly
describe that as discrimination.
Is it not equivalent to complaining about not being able to use a web
site when you don't have a browser?

I believe Vista's calendar supports subscribing, being effectively an
iCal clone, so many people will be able to access this feature. (Not to
mention online calendars like Google also support it.)

For an organisation that exists to put on events, this is important
stuff.

> > (NB: I'll be changing the <abbr> to <span>, due to the
> title issue. I
> > don't think it's an issue now, but it could be.)
>
> Of course it's an issue

For who? I'm very interested to know of any user-agent that actually
reads out the title on an <abbr> element. Given IE's lack of support
for the element in general (which most UAs build on), I'm sceptical
there is one.

I realise they *should* provide an option to read out titles on an
<abbr>, but I don't see the use case for supporting <span>s.

> That is, it helps nobody but hurts many.

Oh come on, people with an app that supports subscription (a rapidly
increasing number) can subscribe to the calendar, receiving updates
without even visiting the site. On balance, I'd say it's more useful
than harmful.

With upcoming browsers (that are actually integrating this function
*now*), people will be able to drag n drop, or (if accessibility
concerns are understood) select any individual event on a page to add to
their calendar.

Patrick: Thanks, I haven't updated the wording since early 2006 when few
people will have come across this concept. I was hoping to hit some
key-words for people that do use those applications, but I will change
it.

Kind regards,

-Alastair

--
Alastair Campbell | Director of User Experience

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