On 12/1/09 07:12, mary-anne.nay...@medicareaustralia.gov.au wrote:
I am just wondering what is the general consensus on the use of Frames or
iFrames these days. WCAG2.0 is not terribly clear on whether we should or
shouldn't be using them.
WCAG 2.0 tries to express the principles of web accessibility in a
technology independent manner. If you can use frames in consistency with
those principles, that's compatible with conforming to WCAG 2.0.
Note that the Techniques document for WCAG 2.0 does include some HTML
techniques relevant to frames:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H64.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H70.html
I understand there are usability issues as well as
problems with Search Engines.
The usability minefield with frames described at -
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9612.html
- hasn't disappeared.
The interoperability problem hasn't disappeared either. There are still
browsers in use - some mobile browsers, Lynx - that can't handle frames.
More recently, security-conscious users are being advised to disable
"iframe" support as one measure against clickjacking:
http://hackademix.net/2008/09/27/clickjacking-and-noscript
http://hackademix.net/2008/09/29/clickjacking-and-other-browsers-ie-safari-chrome-opera/
http://hackademix.net/2008/10/08/hello-clearclick-goodbye-clickjacking/
Likewise the problems with frames for search engines described at the
article Nielsen cites:
http://www.ehsco.com/opinion/19980209.html
appear to still exist today:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34445
http://searchenginewatch.com/2167901
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/webcrawler/slurp-08.html?terms=frames
(although contrast
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/webcrawler/slurp-09.html?terms=frames
)
I have a client that seems determined to use them despite my best advice.
Use them how for what?
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
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