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Re: HTML5 and new elements (was Re: Use of SAMP to highlight search results)

for

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Nov 1, 2010 12:03PM

Cliff Tyllick wrote:

> Jukka, in theory, is it really necessary for user agents to render
> these various tags in different ways,

In practice, I and B tags mostly mean the same as EM and STRONG, namely some
kind of emphasis. An author who uses them expects them to display as italic
or as bold, respectively, or (speaking more abstractly) in some other
special way. It would be incorrect to ignore such markup, just as it would
be incorrect to ignore punctuation in text or heading markup.

> I'm thinking, for example, of when italics are used for the titles
> books or other references.

Then the logical author uses CITE. But if the uses I (or even EM) markup,
then a poor browser has no real way of knowing that in this particular case,
the markup does not mean emphasis. As a whole, it is safer to assume that I
and EM markup always mean emphasis than to ignore them.

> For another example, consider the use of
> italics for taxonomic classifications in biology.

This is something that we would need special markup for, but in the absence
of it, the I markup has to do - for genus and species and subspecies names.
As the names are special scientific names, in Latinized form, often in
parentheses or otherwise outside normal running text, it is not particularly
harmful to treat them as if they were emphasized.

> In either case, the
> visual styling is not so much to make the terms stand apart from the
> words around them as to make them easy to locate on skimming.

Italics doesn't make it particularly easy to locate expressions on skimming,
especially when sans-serif fonts are used, as people usually use on web
pages. The purpose of italics is often just to "set aside" some text,
distinguishing it from base text - not on skimming but on reading.

> After all, it wouldn't be particularly useful to a person using a
> screen reader to hear some unique vocal characteristic each time a
> title or taxonomic term is mentioned.

It depends. If the text mentions, say, the unknown soldier, it might be
essential whether the generic concept is meant or whether a book called "The
unknown soldier" is referred to. In the latter case, the author might choose
to use quotation marks, or CITE element. Some unique vocal characteristic
would probably increase the odds of correct understanding in the latter
case.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/