Le 21 févr. 2007 à 11:39, Ian Hickson a écrit :
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Vlad Alexander (xhtml.com) wrote:
...We could require editors to do this, but since nobody knows
how to
do it, it would be a stupid requirement. ...
Is it due to a flaw in HTML that it is difficult to build authoring
tools, such as WYSIWYG editors, that generate markup rich in
semantics,
embody best-practices and can be easily used by non-technical people?
No, I think it's just something that is fundamentally hard. People
think
visually, trying to ask a Web designer to think in terms of (e.g.)
headers
instead of font sizes is just something that WYSIWYG implementors
and UI
researchers simply haven't solved yet. Personally I don't think it's a
lost cause, but we're just not there yet.
"Web designer" the term is too broad.
There will be people concerned by markup structures, some not.
Exactly the same way when people are using MS Office Word, which has
two main modes: visual and structural. Structural mode in word helps
to achieve indexes of figures, table of contents, automatic styling.
I do not think it relies on categories of people but more on ROI
(Return On Investment), if someone has benefits structuring
information, they will do it. If there are no *direct and personal*
benefits, they will not do it, except if constrained.
Constrains can be "controlled editing" for example. What I mean is
the type of editing, there is in an Addressbook, in a library
software, in Web services with UIs driven by AJAX (photo services,
messaging, calendaring, etc.)
Constraining someone to make structural editing if he/she doesn't
need it would be like constraining someone to structure the free note
taking on the back of a paper envelop or how to organize a collage
and text diary. It is likely to fail on massive scale. The question
in this case is HTML the best technology to address sites like
MySpace (scrapbook diary).
Since much of the content on the Web is created using such authoring
tools, can we ever achieve a semantically rich and accessible Web?
There will always be a continuum of sites from the unusable to the
very
accessible. As with all fields of human endeavour, there will
always be
the highly competent Web designers who understand fundamentally how to
build device-independent sites that cater to all kinds of users,
and there
will always be the inexperienced and ignorant Web designers who
think only
in terms of their own personal experience, targetting a specific
browser
on a specific computer without taking into account any other potential
user experience.
Probably the best we can do is design the language to make "the right
thing" easier, and invest more heavily in education. In this regard
HTML
is in the same boat as more important subjects; I imagine that as we
improve the quality of education in general, understanding of the
importance of accessibility and related topics will improve as well.
+1
--
Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
W3C Conformance Manager, QA Activity Lead
QA Weblog - http://www.w3.org/QA/
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