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

for

From: Jon Gunderson
Date: May 17, 2002 10:50AM


I think the using style sheets to style content is the biggest step. In
most browsers you can adjust font size whether the font size is specified
in fixed or relative units.

There is an advantage to relative units if you designing liquid renderings
that adjust to the wdith of the graphical window, but in general browser
incompatibilites make this more of an art than a science. Most developers
still view the web a a graphical medium with an average width of 800x600
pixels. It is hard to convince developers with this mind set to use
technologies that provide them with less control over rendering. I think
getting them to use style sheets at all is a huge step.

You can send comments directly to the W3C Web Content Authoring
Group at
<EMAIL REMOVED>

Jon




On Fri, 17 May 2002, John Foliot - bytown internet wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Michael R. Burks [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> > Sent: May 16, 2002 9:35 AM
> > To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > Subject: RE: Printable character between adjacent links
> >
> >
> > Just one more reason that the WAI needs to rethink and revisit
> > much of what
> > they recommend.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Mike Burks
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Prof Norm Coombs [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> > Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 8:57 AM
> > To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > Subject: RE: Printable character between adjacent links
> >
> >
> > As a blind user of the Internet,
> > I hate hate hate those characters between links that WAI thinks
> > is so nice.
> >
> > At 11:31 AM 5/15/02 +0300, you wrote:
> > >philip steven lanier wrote:
> > >
> > > > Adjacent image-based links can unambiguously be made visually
distinct
> > > > from each other. Consider a row of circular "button"
> > > > graphics with text or icons in them.
> > >
> > >Yes, that's one possibility I had in my mind. Sorry for not
> > making it clear
> > >that borders and margins were just _examples_ of the visual
presentation
> > >features that could be used. Yet another possibility - for images that
> > >essentially contain text - would be to use alternating background
colors
> > >that are sufficiently different.
> > >
> > >The basic problem to avoid is having a row of links like
> > > foo bar zap blurp more foo more bar and so on
> > >in image format, with no obvious (and I mean _obvious_ to
> > virtually anyone
> > >who sees it) indication of where each link ends or even how many
links
> > there
> > >are. A useful rule of thumb: the user should be able to recognize
them as
> > >separate links without knowing the topic or even the language used.
It
> > >happens too often that people rely on orthography like capital letters
or
> > >even recognizing _phrases_, or other "higher level protocol" issues.
> > >
> > >--
> > >Jukka Korpela
> > >TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehitt