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Re: Well formed verses Valid code

for

From: Derek Featherstone
Date: Feb 26, 2007 7:20AM

On 2/26/07, Alastair Campbell wrote:

>Derek Featherstone wrote:
>> "If ever you find errors in validation that cause issues with speech
>> technology such as screen readers, please please please publish the
>> details."
>
>It's fairly rare because they tend to cause browser issues first, but
>depending on the browser I do come across things occasionally:
>http://alastairc.ac/2006/06/invalid-html-interfering-with-accessibility

Hi Alastair - thanks for that link, and yes, I'm asking people to
publish anything that they find because the issues are rare.

>does anyone know if things like un-encoded ampersands could cause an
>accessibility issue?

Way back in the dark ages (i.e., 1999-2000) an app at the college where
I was consulting was causing all kinds of strife because of unencoded
ampersands in URLs. I don't remember all the details, but the bottom
line was that one of the GET params was converted to the character
entity (the URL was /whatever.asp?term=2000W&crs=501&section=1) and the
&section was getting converted to the § (the ; is optional so it
interpreted it as such without the encoded ampersand) entity which meant
data wasn't being saved properly and what was shown back to the user on
their confirmation page wasn't what was expected and wasn't saved
properly. Stretching it, I know, but it was the only case I have ever
seen where an unencoded ampersand caused a real problem. Not strictly
accessibility, either, and certainly not discriminatory based on ability
- it affected everyone equally, as all were confused!


Cheers,
Derek.
--
Derek Featherstone <EMAIL REMOVED>
tel: +1 613-599-9784 1-866-932-4878 (toll-free in North America)
Web Development: http://www.furtherahead.com
Personal: http://www.boxofchocolates.ca
Web Standards: http://www.webstandards.org