

Re: New version of Guidelines

From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-hwg@idyllmtn.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:14:28 -0700
Message-Id: <>
To: Richard Roehm III <deaf@activist.com>
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
At 11:03 p.m. 04/16/98 -0400, Richard Roehm III wrote:
>The new guidelines sucks.

Yowsa.  In what way?

>I just had my deafwatch.com site checked by 
>The Bobby checker.  Last year I got 3 stars  this sime 3 accessibility 
>errors.  My site basically is a very simple site and it goes in the direction
>that a text version will not be needed.

Are you objecting to Bobby's implemenation of the Guidelines
(which are the older ones, not the new ones), or to something
specific in the Guidelines you don't like, or just to the idea
of author guidelines in the first place?

>I really dont know where these guidelines are comming from

Aren't there credits and an explanation of where the Guidelines
come from on the Guidelines themselves?

>but I dont like it

Why not?  Give some reasons besides "they suck" and "I don't
like it", and it's likely that your concerns may be addressed
in a later version.

>and I feel the sole responsibility of making webpages accessible rests on the
>browser makers NOT the website authors.

You may feel that -- but you're completely wrong.  The web
author _has_ to supply enough information for the browser to
display information, or else it simply _can't_ make a page

For example, if I have a page that looks like this:

    <IMG SRC="wr40ns.gif">
    <A HREF="lft.html"><IMG SRC="lft40ns.gif"></A>
    <A HREF="rit.html"><IMG SRC="rit40ns.gif"></A>

...there's simply no way that any browser, no matter how smart,
can display this in a way that will be as accessible to a 
blind user as to a sighted one.  No way, no how -- and it's
the fault of the page designer, not the browser.

If I said, instead:

    <IMG SRC="wr40ns.gif" ALT="Welcome to Kynn's Politics Page!">
    <A HREF="lft.html" TITLE="Left Wing Rhetoric Page"
      ><IMG SRC="lft40ns.gif" ALT="The Far Left"></A>
    <A HREF="rit.html" TITLE="Right Wing Rhetoric Page"
      ><IMG SRC="rit40ns.gif" ALT="The Far Right"></A>

...then anyone can understand it, even by reading the "raw
HTML".  (Note that in the hypothetical example above, the images
would consist of fancy graphical versions of the text above,
perhaps with big arrows pointing in different directions, or

So, you may be pissed that you don't get a high enough Bobby
rating, and I understand that and welcome your feedback on
the Guidelines, but you're way, way, WAY off base if you think
that accessibility is primarily a _browser_ issue and not an
authoring issue.

Kynn Bartlett <kynn@hwg.org>
Governing Board Member, HTML Writers Guild
Education and Outreach working group member,
  Web Accessibility Initiative
Received on Friday, 17 April 1998 12:10:14 GMT
