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RE: Off-left vs. block/none oddity.

for

From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Feb 6, 2006 8:45AM

Yet another reason to use consistent, standards based implementations.
Although the vendor mentioned makes a great product, it is _software_
and as such, has defects. I know this argument isn't much different than
how designers and content developers work around defects in the myriad
of browsers on different operating systems, but we shouldn't be building
and indexing every known set of defects.

Extending and reframing an argument on this thread, I'd say that this
also addresses user accessibility and usability by supporting standard
based approaches. It makes it easier to explain to your client that
valid code, standards, open standards (technologies available to
everyone without proprietary lock-in), and accessible implementations
are the proper way to develop. Screen readers should thus be able to
know what technologies to support and not waste time on work arounds for
proprietary solutions.


Regards,


Norman


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 10:39 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Off-left vs. block/none oddity.


pixeldiva wrote:
> The trouble is that more screen readers these days (specifically JAWS
> springs to mind, but there are others) are parsing CSS and so if you
> use display: none then it doesn't get read out at all.

The next version of JAWS will (at least according to Freedom Scientific)

have its own DOM interpreting engine separate from IE. It will
reportedly
fix many of these inconsistencies, plus allow developers to manipulate
elements with DOM, DHTML, etc. and still have them be (theoretically)
accessible. It will probably also mean that lots of things will change
and
we'll have a new set of screen reader inconsistencies to deal with.

Jared Smith
WebAIM.org