[Wsuug] New Web Page

[Kelley Walker]

I'm kind of attach to accessibility guidelines because I have so many 
friends and acquaintances who use them, and because I was a big cheerleader 
for them when I worked on an LMS years ago where we had to hew to 
accessibility requirements b/c it wa a product for fortune 100s and the 
government, all of whom had accessibility requirements. It really brought 
me up close and personal with the increasing numbers of people who are 
visually disabled.

According to the W3C:

"When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than images 
to convey information. [Priority 2]
For example, use MathML to mark up mathematical equations, and 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#style-sheet>style sheets to format text and 
control layout. Also, avoid using images to represent text -- use text and 
style sheets instead. Refer also to 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-new-technologies>guideline 6 and 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#gl-use-w3c>guideline 11.
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/#tech-use-markup>Techniques for 
checkpoint 3.1 "

Stop Design's Doug Bowman obsessed about the issue for quite awhile back in 
2003 or 2004? He tried using various techniques such as FIR but came up 
against problems. I'd have to dig out my notes from back then. or google it. :)

Oh, thanks google: 
<http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fir/>http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fir/ 


and thanks again, Cederholm's book has a 2009 version of the debate where 
he concludes that the FIR method is still an issue for accessibility:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Eli4Z2w8zgkC&pg=PA224&lpg=PA224&dq=%22web+standards%22+images+replace+text&source=bl&ots=kLMPeAqkfQ&sig=6prNvksO0Yw0piN6gb9NKkatQfk&hl=en&ei=s4Z8S8TPCJGcsgPe-_W8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CB8Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=%22web%20standards%22%20images%20replace%20text&f=false


My preference is to skip FIR and to skip the images for the sake of 
accessibility issues. Use text. We have to compromise so much in our day 
jobs, why compromise on something that is about our voluntary efforts, and 
about making the world a better place?

Kelley

At 06:08 PM 2/17/2010, Reese wrote:
>Hello everyone,
>
>I'm finishing up work on the design for the Refresh Hampton Roads page.
>We have a chocolate versus strawberry versus vanilla decision. The site
>is already image heavy with the large branding image so I'm not sure
>that we want even more images. So, in the spirit of Refresh and its
>mission - Web standards - which is preferable:
>
>    - use of background images where text could be used for headings
>    - use of font-replacement technology that doesn't work in all
>      browsers. it will some day, it isn't yet
>    - use of text only (the current implementation)
>
>The text in question?
>These header text strings from http://www.inkworkswell.net/refresh-hr/
>
>    "What is refresh | Hampton Roads?"
>    "our manifesto"
>    "meetings"
>
>The driving questions? What is the best practice? Which would reflect
>best on our commitment to Web standards?
>
>Reese
>
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