I disagree with Patrick's assessment on several points: 10.2 - Some user agents such as Lynx linearise the page but do not support <label> elements so it is still important to correctly position the labels.
1.5 - Some users are not able to use image maps for a variety of reasons so I would always provide redundant text links. One reason is that it is often difficult to see which area of the map has focus when using keyboard navigation. In our experience image maps are no obstacle for screen reader users but they are more of a problem for users of screen magnifiers because they often require both vertical and horizontal scrolling. Also the label for each area is often provided by means of a tooltip because the areas are too small for a text label, and the tooltip is often not fully visible without scrolling. For these users a combobox is far more accessible. 10.3 - One of my testers still uses ZoomText 7, in which the Doc Reader function does do a screen scrape and therefore reads across columns. Version 9 does not do this but there will be plenty of people still using earlier versions. 10.4 - Totally agree. Default placeholding text does more harm than good. All this raises an interesting issue. Does "until user agents..." mean "until some user agents..." or "until most user agents..." or "until all user agents..."? And how would we know when any of these criteria are met, because I am not aware of any statistics for the usage of the various makes and versions of user agent or AT? With the exception of 10.3 all of these checkpoints are easily implemented at little or no cost and they have little or no impact on the design so I generally don't ignore any of them except 10.3. Steve Green Director Test Partners Ltd / First Accessibility www.testpartners.co.uk www.accessibility.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: listdad@webstandardsgroup.org [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick H. Lauke Sent: 24 July 2006 09:13 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] WCAG 1.0 and 'Until user agents...' Lindsay Evans wrote: > I'm in the process of defining accessibility guidelines for a new > site, and am thinking it would be helpful to eliminate certain WCAG > checkpoints that are no longer relevant and could possibly lead to > usability problems if followed to the letter Here are my thoughts on which WCAG 1.0 checkpoints can be knowingly ignored: 10.2 Until user agents support explicit associations between labels and form controls, for all form controls with implicitly associated labels, ensure that the label is properly positioned. (though it's still best practice from a usability point of view) 10.5 Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links. (as long as there is at least a single space, and the styling of your page is clear enough - e.g. maybe a bit of extra horizontal padding for inline links) 1.5 Until user agents render text equivalents for client-side image map links, provide redundant text links for each active region of a client-side image map. (as far as I know, all modern user agents should cope fine with properly marked up client-side image map...as long as you provide ALTs for each AREA) 10.3 Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render side-by-side text correctly, provide a linear text alternative (on the current page or some other) for all tables that lay out text in parallel, word-wrapped columns. (since most AT looks to the document source, rather than simply visually scraping the screen, this shouldn't cause any more issues) 10.4 Until user agents handle empty controls correctly, include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas. (apart from old braillers, this is not an issue anymore; in fact, having place-holding content can be a usability issue, as users need to go the extra step of first deleting the default content) Unfortunately I don't have an exact list showing what current UAs/ATs support...this is mainly based on empirical evidence, discussions with users of specific ATs, and a bit of gut instinct. Patrick -- Patrick H. Lauke __________________________________________________________ re.dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.] www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk http://redux.deviantart.com __________________________________________________________ Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force http://webstandards.org/ __________________________________________________________ ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ****************************************************** ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
