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jaybee
Posts: 14153
Joined: 10/7/2003
From: Berkshire, UK
Status: offline
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WCAG 2.0 - 6/16/2006 11:38:07
OK, now we've waited for this new set of rules that the gurus and boffins have been slaving over for what seems like years and they're on the brink of arriving. Yee Hah!
More like Yee Uck I'm afraid.
Case in point and something we've debated on here in depth several times - <abbr> and <acronym>
Well I kind of thought, misguidedly, that version 2.0 would sort out the confusion and it has. It says in no uncertain terms that there's been confusion in the past with <abbr> and <acronym> and so, to make it all a lot simpler, they're doing away with <acronym> so the only one you need to worry about is <abbr>
I see one small problem here...... IE ignores <abbr> completely. I mean, that's where the darned confusion stemmed from in the first place.
You have an abbreviation on your page but IE ignores them, so do you use an acronym instead, which isn't correct but works, and will using that confuse the screen readers.
And............. (takes breath and rant continues)
what about all the sites that have implemented acronyms because the darned abbr didn't show up in IE and suddenly find it's been deprecated.
This stuff is tough enough to implement without the idiots who are supposed to be helping us making it worse.
This article on A List Apart gives a workaround that I'm about to try but for heaven's sake we shouldn't be trying to find hacks!!!!
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If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is.
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Now where did I put that Doctype?
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dpf
Posts: 7121
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
Status: offline
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RE: WCAG 2.0 - 6/16/2006 11:53:12
hers a great example of the standards and good browser issue. if i understand correctly, you had two tags..one used by the browser that has 90% of the market - so the standards writers decide to set the other as a standard and now "good" browsers will presumable be configured for that one and now everyone can continue to say IE is "broke" and doesnt support standards and is "bad"
think about it
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Dan
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dpf
Posts: 7121
Joined: 11/12/2003
From: India-napolis
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RE: WCAG 2.0 - 6/16/2006 12:10:59
quote:
It says in no uncertain terms that there's been confusion in the past with <abbr> and <acronym> and so, to make it all a lot simpler, they're doing away with <acronym> so the only one you need to worry about is <abbr> lets look at this logic... suppose in the real world, two sets of browsers use 2 different tags to do the same thing. Are standards writers really "making it simpler" if they pick one as a standard and render the other obsolete - and thereby rendering one browser set "wrong"? who is it simpler for? not users who have the wrong browser (as determined by which tag the standards writers pick) - or easier for web writers so they dont have to remember 2? interesting
im not against standards - take the box model for example - it doesnt work to have 2 different implementations - we all know that... but while one choice might be good if setting standards at the begining - it can cause havoc in the real world and i still content that some of the bad browser stuff is becuase of standards written after the fact ..
anyhoo..im saying no more..lol
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Dan
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Tailslide
Posts: 6032
Joined: 5/10/2005
From: Out here on the raggedy edge
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RE: WCAG 2.0 - 6/16/2006 13:02:13
What you have to remember is that Microsoft were part of the group that wrote the standards!
It's not a case they they were presented with something and told "here you go these is the rules!" They wrote them... then ignored them! Microsoft were part of the group that agreed on the correct box model etc etc. Then they ignored it. But the W3C "standards" (e.g. writing valid markup) is a different thing entirely to the WCAG and shouldn't be confused.
I don't think WCAG2 is a step forward - in fact it's a very confusing, deliberately (in my opinion) obtuse document. There is (I think) still time for changes before the document is finalised and the "standards crowd" are in uproar about how generally rubbish these new guidelines are. I think they were hoping for something simple, easy to understand and implement.
Thing is in the end the WCAG are guidelines about accessibility. They're not as "strong" as the W3C recommendations regarding markup for instance . So whereas using correct markup is (in my mind at least) a black and white issue - it's either right or wrong; how you apply the WCAG guidelines are more up to you.
I personally will apply common sense to the issue - if I understand that something is a barrier to accessibility I will avoid it no matter what the WCAG2 says. Likewise if I believe one of their recommendations are possibly harmful then I will ignore it. Common sense and a bit of thought should prevail with this.
I think it's a sad lost opportunity to lay out easy to understand guidelines for developers.
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