Ok, real quick. :-)
>> <strong> and <em> aren't derivations of bold and italics but the
otherway around...
Yes, my fault. I should have been more careful.
>> In speech you do the same with intonation. If diferent people say
the same thing in diferent languages or even in the same, it sounds
diferent, but in means of structure you will still notice the emphasis,
sometimes even without knowing the language.
In speech, I would say we do a similar thing...not the same. There are
rules for italics (refering to a particular thing, like a book or a
word) that don't refer to any verbal usage. You wouldn't want screen
readers to put emphasis there (i.e. "Because it is a verb, /run/ has a
past, present, and future tense."). Yet we choose two elements, EM and
STRONG that come from written forms instead of INF1 through INF5 for
inflection values. Sure we can mimic inflection for EM and STRONG, but
that doesn't change their origin or primary intention. I mean, think
about it, we have whole tags devoted to tables and images - purely
visual content. What purely auditory elements do we have (auditory
descriptors of visual data don't count)?
>> You are mixing DATA, CONTENT, STRUCTURE and VISUALIZATION.
I'm not aware of all these differences...what's the difference between
data and content? Aren't they the same? The closest thing I could find
is the difference between data and information
(http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/d/data-info.html),
and if that's what you meant, I'd be interested to hear how you'd
differenciate between the two in an X/HTML document. I can't think of a
difference, but that certainly doesn't mean that there isn't one.
Thanks for your thoughts!
-Nate
*Nathan Rutman* ([EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
Corporate Communications Designer
*Solvepoint Corporation*
882 South Matlack Street, Suite 110
West Chester, PA 19382
800.388.1850 x1208
484.356.0990 (fax)
www.solvepoint.com <http://www.solvepoint.com>
Martin Heiden wrote:
Nathan,
Am Dienstag, 12. Juli 2005 um 14:04:09 haben Sie geschrieben:
Similarly, strong and emphasized elements are derivations of bold
and italicized type, respectively. If you think about listening to a
speech verses reading a speech, the oral form gives much less
meaning to these "structural" elements (sometimes no meaning at
all).
I do not follow your argumentation. <strong> and <em> aren't
derivations of bold and italics but the otherway around. bold and
italics are visual expressions of emphasis. In speech you do the same
with intonation. If diferent people say the same thing in diferent
languages or even in the same, it sounds diferent, but in means of
structure you will still notice the emphasis, sometimes even without
knowing the language.
If you separate structure and visual expression, you've got much more
chances to express exactly what you want. Yo can choose to express
<em> as orange text and <strong> as red instead of just being bound to
italics and bold. And a screenreader can still distinguish between
normal and strong emphasis. Maybe someday you'll be able to instruct
even the screenreader how you want to express this structure in aural
way.
I would lump X/HTML in with that group of "inherently visual
documents." And someone will say, "But it's data recorded
electronically, not printed on a page," to which I would reply, "Data is
data, whether stored in ink or in memory." A hard drive can contain
00010111, but whose to say whether that's a character or part of an
Elvis mp3? The meaningfulness of data is largely in how it is
interpreted, and the primary interpretation of X/HTML is visual. Screen
readers can interpret websites orally just as audio books can interpret
books orally. It doesn't change the idea that the primary intent was
visual.
You are mixing DATA, CONTENT, STRUCTURE and VISUALIZATION. These are
different layers of the product that you see on your monitor or hear
from your speakers. If you mix the compontents you loose flexibilty.
If you store a book as DATA on a harddrive expressed as STRUCTUREd
CONTENT - maybe technical as xml (or xhtml) - you can transform the
same STRUCTURE with it's CONTENT to a visual representation (like a
webpage) or using a screenreader to aural media (voice/mp3). You only
have to change the VISUALIZATION.
And I think that's huge a benefit.
<em> and <strong> are much more meaningful than <b> or <i> because
they don't loose their meaning when transformed to different media.
Martin.
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