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Re: help with a form please

for

From: Geoff Munn
Date: Mar 17, 2007 9:00PM

On 18/03/2007, at 12:32 AM, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> On Sat, 17 Mar 2007, Geoff Munn wrote:
>
>> There is no width and height attributes on your <img> element here,
>> which might be a problem for any accessibility guidelines you have to
>> conform to.
>
> No, width and height attributes (or corresponding CSS properties)
> are an efficiency issue rather than an accessibility matter. Adding
> them does not make the page any more accessible. Neither are they
> required or recommended by accessibility guidelines.
>
> In fact, they may _reduce_ accessibility. The most popular browser
> uses the specified dimensions when rendering the alt text visually,
> in situations where the image is not rendered. Setting pixel
> dimensions for text is a potential threat, since it may result in
> truncation of the alt text when it does not fit. This may happen
> even when the alt text is short. After all, the user may have set
> his system to use a large font
> in such texts (it's really a system-wide setting on Windows).
>
> This IE behavior can be turned off, but few people ever heard of that.

Ok, I didn't make any assertion that it was an accessibility issue, I
just referred to any 'accessibility guidelines' that the original
author may be required to comply with. If the requirement for height
and width attributes is present in such guidelines, then maybe the
guidelines are mis-named, but that doesn't make me wrong.
Here's an example:
http://www.e.govt.nz/standards/web-guidelines/web-guidelines-v-2-1/
chapter6.html

>
>> Secondly, you do not have a default value for your <input> element.
>>>
>>> <td><INPUT size="25" name="icand_fname" ID="icand_fname"></td>
>>> <td><INPUT size="25" name="icand_lname" ID="icand_lname"></td>
>
> Neither should there be. The old recommendation of setting dummy
> placeholders as initial content was ill-advised from the beginning,
> and it was made with the condition "until user agents handle empty
> fields properly". The faulty browsers that didn't cope with empty
> fields have lost all their significance years ago. Anyone using
> such a browser these days is doomed to encounter serious
> difficulties in the great majority of forms on web pages.
>
> Following the old recommendation by foolish dummy values like
> VALUE="your first name" is not only pointless; it is hostile to
> accessibility (e.g., by confusing people with cognitive problems
> into thinking that the field has already been filled).

Well you may be right, but people are still required in some cases to
comply with the old WAI priorities. If that's the case, then there
should be default values.


>
>> I might be a little harsh, but there you go...
>
> You would deserve some harsh comments for disseminating completely
> wrong information, but there was nothing harsh in your style. You
> were just utterly wrong and wanted to give advice before actually
> getting enough advice from existing material on accessibility and
> web authoring.

Not 'completely wrong' actually, you just have a very strong point of
view which is incompatible with the practicalities of what some
people are required to do. Perhaps you should try to be more
familiar with what people are required to do in the real world.

Geoff