[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Alternatives to the W3C
At Wednesday 1/19/00 07:02 PM -0500, Ann Navarro wrote: >At 03:38 PM 1/19/00 -0800, Dave Winer wrote: > > >The market is moving to IE 5 at a quick pace now. And there are plenty of > >popular web sites that only work with IE5.The more of these there are, the > >easier it will be to settle on IE 5 as the default browser. <snip> >Your conclusions are highly debatable. I agree with Ann here. As has been correctly pointed out, there are plenty of sites that use Lynx as a default browser, and much of the low-vision and blind user community will *never* "upgrade" to IE 4 or above, ever. In addition to the commercial concern of limiting your market, failing to take Lynx and other text-mode browsers into account when you design a site is quite probably engineering malpractice and an invitation to an ADA lawsuit for many sites, assuming the site does anything useful for which a person with a disability might need equal access and reasonable accommodation to use. We can note that not so very long ago "the market moved" toward imposing steps at the entrances to public buildings in utter disregard for a significant portion of the population. Which steps are now being retrofitted with expensive ramps, elevators, and other workarounds addressing the design failures of short-sighted (or arrogant) architects in the days before ADA. While it might be fun to use the latest and greatest of everything, it will be far less fun to redesign an entire site to provide a parallel path for users with disabilities. The US Department of Justice has already issued rulings specifically addressing Web site design, which basically seem to say that mere ignorance or the unavailability of accessibility features in a particular toolset is no excuse, since accessibility guidelines and tools *are* available and have been for some time. If you don't use them, or fail to take accessibility into account and provide for it, you, or your customer, may well be entirely liable for the entire cost of remediation with no fiscal limits based on "reasonability." xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ or CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 Please note: New list subscriptions now closed in preparation for transfer to OASIS.
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