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RE: WAI needs to rethink and revisit (was Printable character between adjacent links)

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From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: May 17, 2002 6:05AM

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




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