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Now I'm just plain confused... (was: RE: Web accessibility: The Text-only Revolution)

for

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Dec 3, 2003 3:05PM


If you visit the UsableNet website here:
http://www.usablenet.com/products_services/customers.html to their credit
(and my tip-of-the-hat) the page validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict (!!) If you
"click" on the link to serve up the same page as "Text Only" the resulting
page drops to Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional... still valid, but why are they
doing this? Am I the only one confused by this?

If they validate to XHTML 1.0 Strict, they have effectively separated the
"design" from the text already and are using CSS for design layout etc. At
this point, don't all user agents that require / serve up text only get just
that? Why would you need to create a link which serves up an earlier HTML
version of the same content (minus the pretty)? The hard part has already
been done...

Perhaps this cold I feel coming on has something to do with my addled brain
today, but can anybody from this list (or perhaps UsableNet) explain why a
tool which moves content "backwards" to an earlier version of HTML is
useful?

JF
--
John Foliot <EMAIL REMOVED>
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)



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