Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

**Brian** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Jim Ley wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 03:34:13 GMT, Beauregard T. Shagnasty
> <a.nony.nous@ex ample.invalid> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>"On this page: http://www.onetruefit.com/privacy.php
>>in IE6, increasing the text size to Largest only makes the bullets in the
>>list larger. The font is unaffected and remains too small."[/color]
>
> Yes, there's just no relevance to accessible authoring in saying that,[/color]

That's nonsense. The accessible thing to do is not set a font-size at
all. (If you want to change the appearance of a site, the accessible
way to do so is to set body to 100%, and other elements relative to
it. But you already knew that.)

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

**Barry Pearson** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

kchayka wrote:[color=blue]
> Barry Pearson wrote:[color=green]
>> kchayka wrote:[color=darkred]
>>> Barry Pearson wrote:[/color]
>>
>> See the following. They are described there:
>> http://www.birdsandanimals.info/web_site/formats.htm
>> (I use 9, not 8. One is used for the non-photograph pages).
>>
>> If you can think of a way of reducing the numbers of CSSs, please
>> tell me.[/color]
>
> I've already spent much more time on this than I intended. If you
> really want assistance with this, I suggest you start a new thread.[/color]

I'm sorry! I'm a consultant. I'll steal your watch then charge you if you want
to know the time. I push people to the limit. And they do the same to me. (I
maintain the FAQ for one NG and appear in another). I've got a lot of help
here. I won't push my luck - someone may charge me!

But I have now solved the problem of those 8 photograph-page CSSs. When I was
replying to you, I suddenly had an idea about contextual selectors. (No, you
can't charge me for it!) I've just tested the idea, and it works. I can get
down to 1 CSS for those pages! Instead of saying:

<link rel="stylesheet " href="style_dar k_grey.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>

I can say:

<link rel="stylesheet " href="style_one _css.css" type="text/css">
</head>
<body class="dark_gre y">

So, I can have just the one "style_one_css. css" for all my photograph pages.
Then I can say things like:

body.dark_grey { background-color: #191919; background-image:
url(../assets/dark_grey.gif); color: #C1C1C1; }

body.dark_grey a:link, body.dark_grey a:visited { color: #4444FF;
text-decoration: none; }
body.dark_grey a:hover { color: #FF0000; text-decoration: none;
background-color: #FFFFFF; }

body.dark_grey div.middle, body.dark_grey div.inner { padding: 7px; border:
solid #000000 1px; }
body.dark_grey div.middle { border-left-color: #666666; border-top-color:
#666666; }
body.dark_grey div.inner { border-right-color: #666666; border-bottom-color:
#666666; }

Blindingly obvious to experts. A breakthrough to me. Control photograph-page
colour and style via the body tag. (Hm! Should it be ID, not class?)

[snip][color=blue][color=green]
>> All the common combinations of text colour and background colour
>> used there pass the thresholds for both the Colour Brightness
>> Formula and the Colour Difference Formula suggested by the World
>> Wide Web Consortium (W3C).[/color]
>
> <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/AERT#color>
> "Requiremen t: Determine color visibility.@@ne eds work?"
> "This is a suggested algorithm that is still open to change."
>
> IOW, don't take it as gospel. I'm sure that on your high-end,
> carefully calibrated monitor everything looks peachy, but not
> everyone has such a configuration. Nor does everyone have perfect
> lighting, the perfect work space, or perfect eyesight.
>
> If you search a bit more, you may find some articles on using dark
> backgrounds vs light ones and which is generally better for on-screen
> readability.[/color]

I hope those have been taken into account in the W3C guidelines.

But the real point is, getting the photograph on the right background is an
order of magnitude more important to me than getting the text the right
colour. (I used to use a pop-up window that only showed the photograph on a
chosen background, no text at all).

I accept the consequences if some people fundamentally disagree with my
choices.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

Child Support Analysis

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

This site provides information & analysis of child support & the Child Support Agency in the UK, mainly for lobbyists, politicians, academics & media.

**Eric Jarvis** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Barry Pearson wrote:[color=blue]
> William Tasso wrote:[color=green]
> > Barry Pearson wrote:[/color]
> [snip][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> But, on the whole, accessibility costs extra.[/color]
> >
> > No it doesn't. Please stop saying that. It is untrue.[/color]
> [snip]
>
> All the evidence I see here and across the web says it costs extra. My own
> experience says it costs extra. It costs extra in training. Extra in
> validation and other checking. Extra if a sighted person able to have an
> overview of aspects of a page can easily do something that someone with a more
> serial perception of the page needs extra assistance with.
>
> I believe YOU are the one saying something untrue. We may have to differ on
> this. However, if you can show me research / surveys, etc, that demonstrate
> that it doesn't cost extra, I will read them and comment upon them.
>[/color]

I think the point here is what you feel should be included in the base
price...if one assumes that the base cost for a site includes an ability
to be adequately spidered and indexed by search engines then pretty much
every accessibility issue is already dealt with...If you merely include
the content being visible on the web to a small number of visual web
browsers then there might be some additional costs...however I'd assume
that ANYONE claiming to be a professional web designer would at the least
be ensuring that Google can index the site as an essential basic part of
the job

--
eric

https://www.ericjarvis.co.uk

all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin

**Tina Holmboe** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

"Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> exclaimed in <t9Zdb.7149$4D. 4466623@newsfep 2-win.server.ntli .net>:
[color=blue]
> Suppose (strawman / paraphrase coming up!) I had said:
>
> "All the evidence I have seen says it costs extra to design and build cars to
> handle wheelchairs".
>
> And you had responded:
>
> "Most of the evidence I see across the car-making industry tells me that
> putting in obstacles to wheelchairs costs extra, and taking them out again
> costs even more".
>
> Don't you think that I might feel that you had failed to address the point?[/color]

And you would be right.

Alan is quite capable of answering on his own, but if you got THAT response
out of HIM, then the world would be two days dead allready.

One of the reasons why accessibility is easier - and why cost does not
spring into play - on the web is the fact that the framework is allready
there.

Have you ever read Greg Bear's "Eon" ? If not, it comes warmly recommended
should you enjoy SF; and it has a few points that can be applied to this
topic.

IF the physical framework of a car - the steel - could adjust automatically
to fit any size or type of chair, then such a hypothetical answer would
be correct.

Steel does not. The web does.

[color=blue]
> costs extra! It is a bit like saying "intelligen ce is partly inherited", or
> "men's brains and women's brains have structural differences". It isn't
> allowed to be thought possible - it has to be wrong on principle.[/color]

That's peculiar, really. It's mostly those of us working with accessibility
that are deemed "politicall y incorrect" ...

--
- Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies
tina@greytower. net http://www.greytower.net/
[+46] 0708 557 905

**Tina Holmboe** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

"Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> exclaimed in <bAZdb.7179$4D. 4475281@newsfep 2-win.server.ntli .net>:
[color=blue]
> It does cost them extra, apparently, so I guess they would charge more.
>
> http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/find...ousing/823.asp[/color]

Now I'm confused. It seems, from the URI you quote, that few builders are
even able to quantify the additional costs.

I've got some experience with building various gadgets. Granted, I did
not personally build any liquid gas tankers ;) but it runs in the
family.

A construction company, typically, is slightly sloppy when it comes
to costs. The typical priority is time - material simply doesn't cost
as much as does people.

And it's faster to build an accessible site. Much faster. Well, IMnsHO,
naturally.

It's the tinkering that gets expensive, really.

"Oy, vey, we forgot to put in plumbling on this floor. Blast, where did
we leave the concrete saw ? Overtime again, damned!"

"Oh, no, we forgot to include skip-navigation links on all pages, we'll
have to recode every single one!" (why didn't they use templates ?)

--
- Tina Holmboe Greytower Technologies
tina@greytower. net http://www.greytower.net/
[+46] 0708 557 905

**William Tasso** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Gerhard Fiedler wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 12:13:11 +0100, William Tasso wrote:[color=green]
>>
>> Please allow extra for travel and accommodation if you require a
>> personal presentation to your board of directors.[/color]
>
> which in a way shows how expensive that can get... you might not have
> intended this side-effect :)[/color]

LOL: only on usenet ...

--
William Tasso - http://WilliamTasso.com

**Alan J. Flavell** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:
[color=blue]
> Alan J. Flavell wrote:[color=green]
> > On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:
> >[color=darkred]
> >> All the evidence I see here and across the web says it costs extra.[/color]
> >
> > Most of the evidence I see across the web tells me that putting in
> > obstacles to accessibility costs extra, and taking them out again
> > costs even more. I think you can work out what I deduce from that.[/color]
>
> I can spot a strawman a mile off![/color]

I think the problem we're having with this discussion is that you're
taking as your reference point the miniscule proportion of web sites
such as your own where the groundwork was already done, the site has
been composed by a serious practitioner according to rules of good
practice, the basic accessibility features have already been catered
for, and you're dealing with the extra cost of meeting additional
issues that are raised by the guidelines. Whereas I'm bleating about
the mass of websites produced with some unspeakable pretend-WYSIWYG
website-extruding package, where IMNSHO the issues that I am raising
are very real, and by no means "straw man" issues.
[color=blue]
> Suppose (strawman / paraphrase coming up!) I had said:
>
> "All the evidence I have seen says it costs extra to design and build cars to
> handle wheelchairs".[/color]

Then I would have to agree. Car models appear to be designed with a
relatively narrow 'use case' in mind (different models aimed at
different use cases), and most of them don't include disability access
in their use case.

The web however was designed for diversity of access to information,
and although the original motive may have been diversity of equipment
rather than diversity of user, the fact is that for many kinds, at
least of non-specialised content, it works that way regardless of the
original motive, if the design task is approached flexibly.
[color=blue]
> I'm not talking about broken web sites.[/color]

Exactly! In terms of the criteria that we are discussing, the
majority of web sites _are_ broken, and IMHO that's the first priority
for action. I don't wish to see a ghetto-ised web, with a tiny
minority of sites accessible to disabilities to the n'th degree, while
the rest - whether by intent or by neglect - remains implacably
hostile.
[color=blue]
> That is why I consider accessibility to be a programme (or process), not a
> standard. Making a start may well be cheapish.[/color]

I agree. So let's at least encourage folks to make the start.
[color=blue]
> But honestly, to say it doesn't cost anything, as others have done,
> is wishful thinking.[/color]

To satisfy the full-blown array of guidelines at all levels is hard,
indeed for some kinds of material it's impossible because, in the end,
some of the guidelines become mutually contradictory. But that's no
excuse for those who insist on inserting pointless "kewl feechers" and
then proudly claiming that those features define their "target
audience".

**Barry Pearson** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Eric Jarvis wrote:[color=blue]
> Barry Pearson wrote:[color=green]
>>[/color][/color]
[snip][color=blue]
> I think the point here is what you feel should be included in the base
> price...if one assumes that the base cost for a site includes an
> ability to be adequately spidered and indexed by search engines then
> pretty much every accessibility issue is already dealt with...If you
> merely include the content being visible on the web to a small number
> of visual web browsers then there might be some additional
> costs...however I'd assume that ANYONE claiming to be a professional
> web designer would at the least be ensuring that Google can index the
> site as an essential basic part of the job[/color]

I think you have made a good point here, although I don't know whether I am
reading it the same as you.

If a site can be indexed by search engines, then it is "visitable" . That is
only a start, although a good one, to being accessible. It says that a dumb
engine with enough processing power can in principle navigate around the site.

But is it "livable"? Would a flesh & blood person draw the same conclusions
about the site as the search engine? Would a person tolerate what the search
engine will tolerate?

Perhaps "indexabili ty" is "level 0" of accessibility?

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

Child Support Analysis

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

This site provides information & analysis of child support & the Child Support Agency in the UK, mainly for lobbyists, politicians, academics & media.

**Eric Jarvis** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Barry Pearson wrote:[color=blue]
> Eric Jarvis wrote:[color=green]
> > Barry Pearson wrote:[color=darkred]
> >>[/color][/color]
> [snip][color=green]
> > I think the point here is what you feel should be included in the base
> > price...if one assumes that the base cost for a site includes an
> > ability to be adequately spidered and indexed by search engines then
> > pretty much every accessibility issue is already dealt with...If you
> > merely include the content being visible on the web to a small number
> > of visual web browsers then there might be some additional
> > costs...however I'd assume that ANYONE claiming to be a professional
> > web designer would at the least be ensuring that Google can index the
> > site as an essential basic part of the job[/color]
>
> I think you have made a good point here, although I don't know whether I am
> reading it the same as you.
>
> If a site can be indexed by search engines, then it is "visitable" . That is
> only a start, although a good one, to being accessible. It says that a dumb
> engine with enough processing power can in principle navigate around the site.
>
> But is it "livable"? Would a flesh & blood person draw the same conclusions
> about the site as the search engine? Would a person tolerate what the search
> engine will tolerate?
>
> Perhaps "indexabili ty" is "level 0" of accessibility?
>[/color]

in most respects one has to treat a search engine spider as a blind, deaf,
but determined moron using an extremely stripped down and rare web
browser...so in terms of navigation one is dealing with an extreme case of
accessibility.. .in terms of the content though one looks more at the
searcher than at the bot...it's all about placing important content where
it is easy to get at and ensuring that everything is easily understood

by the time a site is competently set up for the search engines one would
have to put in some serious extra effort to make it inaccessible

sadly the normal design process is to make a totally broken and
inaccessible site and then spend large sums of money on an SEO to fix it

--
eric

https://www.ericjarvis.co.uk

all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin

**Barry Pearson** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Alan J. Flavell wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:[color=green]
>>[/color][/color]
[snip][color=blue]
> To satisfy the full-blown array of guidelines at all levels is hard,
> indeed for some kinds of material it's impossible because, in the end,
> some of the guidelines become mutually contradictory. But that's no
> excuse for those who insist on inserting pointless "kewl feechers" and
> then proudly claiming that those features define their "target
> audience".[/color]

I think we understand one-another and pretty well agree.

And I run with Flash animation, GIF animation, ActiveX dialogues, and
unsolicited pop-ups, switched off by default. So you can guess my views on
"kewl feechers"!

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

Child Support Analysis

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

This site provides information & analysis of child support & the Child Support Agency in the UK, mainly for lobbyists, politicians, academics & media.

**Barry Pearson** · Jul 20 '05, 08:25 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Brian wrote:[color=blue]
> Barry Pearson wrote:[/color]
[snip][color=blue][color=green]
>> But, stepping out of the narrow scope of HTML and CSS, I believe all
>> those borders are presentation.[/color]
>
> No. You are confusing the two.
>
> The most important content on julietremblay.c om is photographs. Those
> photographs, in their entirety, are content. The border on the
> photograph entitled "Bronze Woman" is part of the photograph. If you
> ordered that photograph from her, you would receive it with that
> border. I know, because I've see a large print of it hanging in her
> house. This is not merely semantics. Consider it a matter of
> importance, if that helps. "Bronze Woman" can only be displayed from
> the web site with that border. The thumbnail images on porfolio/ can
> be displayed without the borders, e.g., with a user-stylesheet. For
> the artist, she thinks those thumbnails look good with them, but it is
> not crucial if they are borderless. The only crucial material on
> portfolio/ are the 4 thumbnails and the text. Nothing else is
> content. Therefore, nothing else is crucial. Therefore, nothing else
> is in the HTML.[/color]
[snip]

Rather than debate terminology, I'll give you a demonstration of using
W3C-conformant CSS to add a border to a photograph before turning it into a
JPEG. I hope that you will then see that, for inherently visual material, the
split between content & presentation is forever blurred.

Here is the original JPEG, which has been on the web for some time:

http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/pictures/glamour/gl01_09_09_2.jpg

Here is basically the same photograph, also a JPEG, to which I have added a
border using W3C-conformant CSS. (I'll tell you how, including the CSS itself,
later). Here is a URL to the JPEG, and a URL to a HTML document that
identifies the JPEG as its content

http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/temp/gl01_09_09_2sc.jpg

http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/temp/gl01_09_09_2sc.htm

Here is the extract from the stylesheet that I used to put the border into the
JPEG. This was obviously presentation when I added the border:

body { background-image: url(eggshell.gi f); }
div.middle, div.inner { padding: 7px; border: solid #554433 1px; }
div.middle { border-left-color: #FFF7EE; border-top-color: #FFF7EE; }
div.inner { border-right-color: #FFF7EE; border-bottom-color: #FFF7EE; }

Here is the URL of the "eggshell.g if" used:

http://www.barry.pearson.name/assets/eggshell.gif

Now: given that I used the above CSS to add the border to the original
photograph, isn't that border presentation? Yet above is a JPEG with that
border inside it. So I guess you would call it content.

I expect you know how I used W3C-conformant CSS to do simple photo-editing,
before creating the JPEG. You have the tools on your computer too.

In case there is anyone reading this who doesn't know, I started with the
photograph page below, in which the original photograph is identified by the
HTML, and the border is added by the CSS (of which the above is an extract):

http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/pictures/glamour/gl01_09_09_2.htm

I then did screen capture, and fed the results into a bog-standard
photo-editor to crop it and turn it into a JPEG. I didn't waste time on it (it
just tooks minutes). So I could get much better quality if I wanted to. (For
example, it is double-compressed).

What does this show? In a very narrow sense of just the use of HTML/CSS at the
very last stage, it is possible to decide what to call content and what to
call presentation. But in the total photographic process, genuine
presentation, as understood by this NG and others, can also be seen as genuine
content, as understood by this NG and others. After all - I did web authoring
with HTML/CSS at 2 different places in the process.

That is why, while I understand the narrow use of the words that some may use,
I see the entire process of photography as adding presentation by various
technologies and standards. There is nothing special about the last stage,
except simply that it IS the last stage, and can therefore still be
manipulated in ways that earlier results cannot. People who work with
inherently visual material can make decisions about where certain presentation
is added - before, during, or after the final HTML.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

Child Support Analysis

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

This site provides information & analysis of child support & the Child Support Agency in the UK, mainly for lobbyists, politicians, academics & media.

**Gerhard Fiedler** · Jul 20 '05, 08:26 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 22:11:19 +0100, Alan J. Flavell wrote:
[color=blue]
>I think the problem we're having with this discussion is that you're
>taking as your reference point the miniscule proportion of web sites
>such as your own where the groundwork was already done, the site has
>been composed by a serious practitioner according to rules of good
>practice, the basic accessibility features have already been catered
>for, and you're dealing with the extra cost of meeting additional
>issues that are raised by the guidelines. Whereas I'm bleating about
>the mass of websites produced with some unspeakable pretend-WYSIWYG
>website-extruding package, where IMNSHO the issues that I am raising
>are very real, and by no means "straw man" issues.[/color]

But, getting back to the cost point, my experience in the industry is
that in general code of solid quality (and this seems to be what you
are talking about) costs -- initially at least -- more.

I'm not a frontend designer and usually am more concerned with stuff
that's not visible, but I guess the issues are the same. It is cheaper
to get a simple site up, done by somebody who has barely mastered the
most important menu options of a web site design tool, than to hire
one of the experienced designers. So, from the point of view of the
owner of that site, she got 10 pages that work for her. They are
crappy HTML and if they use CSS at all it's possibly even worse, they
are not "accessible ", but to have them done with a solid, designed
structure could easily have cost multiples of what she paid for them.

[color=blue]
>Then I would have to agree. Car models appear to be designed with a
>relatively narrow 'use case' in mind (different models aimed at
>different use cases), and most of them don't include disability access
>in their use case.
>
>The web however was designed for diversity of access to information,[/color]

I think the analogy is broken here. A car would correspond to a site,
not the web, and the web would correspond to all the cars (and the
Internet to the roads and streets). This then becomes that the roads
accomodate all kinds of cars with their individually narrow use cases,
just as the web consists of all kinds of sites with more or less
narrow (possibly "non-accessible") use cases.

[color=blue]
>Exactly! In terms of the criteria that we are discussing, the
>majority of web sites _are_ broken, and IMHO that's the first priority
>for action. I don't wish to see a ghetto-ised web, with a tiny
>minority of sites accessible to disabilities to the n'th degree, while
>the rest - whether by intent or by neglect - remains implacably
>hostile.[/color]

I didn't feel that anybody in this discussion wouldn't agree with you
on this. (I certainly do, even though Barry wrote pretty much what I
think, too.) But I don't think it comes for free. From the point of a
web site customer, this costs extra. I'm sure you charge more than a
high-school grad who knows a bit about Dreamweaver or whatever the
site generation tool is she uses.

I certainly do, and I know that I won't churn out simple VB apps for
the price some of the programmers out there do. I tend to think that I
produce better quality code than some of them, but I have my price --
and most everybody who does has.

[color=blue]
>To satisfy the full-blown array of guidelines at all levels is hard,
>indeed for some kinds of material it's impossible because, in the end,
>some of the guidelines become mutually contradictory. But that's no
>excuse for those who insist on inserting pointless "kewl feechers" and
>then proudly claiming that those features define their "target
>audience".[/color]

This point is very much philosophical, I think. I don't see a
technical question here, and no budgetary question either. It is about
whether this is a "good" thing. Some people sure think it is. I don't
think that by alienating them you make a huge impact. In terms of
convincing people and educating them about pros and cons of what they
do it is usually much more efficient to work with them rather than
against them (unless you envision hard legal rules about what has to
be done and what must not be done). I don't see that happen a lot.

**Eric Bohlman** · Jul 20 '05, 08:26 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Gerhard Fiedler <me@privacy.net > wrote in
news:dbrinv4nrb c8pfhujotcf2q1q b2cdjreks@4ax.c om:
[color=blue]
> I'm not a frontend designer and usually am more concerned with stuff
> that's not visible, but I guess the issues are the same. It is cheaper
> to get a simple site up, done by somebody who has barely mastered the
> most important menu options of a web site design tool, than to hire
> one of the experienced designers. So, from the point of view of the
> owner of that site, she got 10 pages that work for her. They are
> crappy HTML and if they use CSS at all it's possibly even worse, they
> are not "accessible ", but to have them done with a solid, designed
> structure could easily have cost multiples of what she paid for them.[/color]

You're making the common error of comparing initial purchase prices without
taking total cost into account. Lots of bad deals look good when you do
that. A quality expert (I think it was W. Edwards Deming) told a story
about a shoe manufacturer who "saved" money by buying cheaper thread than
he had been previously using. Sure, there was a saving on the line item
for thread. But the cheap thread broke frequently, forcing the stitching
machines to halt while the operator rethreaded them. The rethreading took
so much time that the manufacturer had to run the factory on overtime in
order to meet his production requirements. The extra cost of the overtime
more than completely wiped out the savings on the thread.

You say "she got 10 pages that work for her." What does that mean?
Assuming the site is supposed to promote or even conduct her business, it
matters not one whit how well it works for *her*. What matters is how it
works for her *customers*. Businesses make money by impressing their
customers, not by impressing their own management. The days are long gone
when a commercial Web site was simply a matter of marking territory on the
Web. If the site has to be reworked to make it useful to her customers,
then the cost of the rework has to be taken into account. You can't
pretend it doesn't exist. And if the rework isn't done, then the initial
money paid was *completely wasted*; the owner would have been better off
not spending it at all.

**Barry Pearson** · Jul 20 '05, 08:26 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Eric Jarvis wrote:[color=blue]
> Barry Pearson wrote:[/color]
[snip][color=blue][color=green]
>> If a site can be indexed by search engines, then it is "visitable" .
>> That is only a start, although a good one, to being accessible. It
>> says that a dumb engine with enough processing power can in
>> principle navigate around the site.
>>
>> But is it "livable"? Would a flesh & blood person draw the same
>> conclusions about the site as the search engine? Would a person
>> tolerate what the search engine will tolerate?
>>
>> Perhaps "indexabili ty" is "level 0" of accessibility?[/color]
>
> in most respects one has to treat a search engine spider as a blind,
> deaf, but determined moron using an extremely stripped down and rare
> web browser...so in terms of navigation one is dealing with an
> extreme case of accessibility.. .in terms of the content though one
> looks more at the searcher than at the bot...it's all about placing
> important content where it is easy to get at and ensuring that
> everything is easily understood
>
> by the time a site is competently set up for the search engines one
> would have to put in some serious extra effort to make it inaccessible
>
> sadly the normal design process is to make a totally broken and
> inaccessible site and then spend large sums of money on an SEO to fix
> it[/color]

Sadly, I have to agree. Some sites defy both human navigation and search
engine navigation.

What we both appear to believe is that search engines and accessibility
principles are actually compatible with one-another. A search engine can't
just take "a bird's eye view" of a site or a page. Neither can a blind person.
Both rely on a certain amount of structure. Both tend to need a considerable
amount of serial processing of the material.

I wonder how much advocates of accessibility promote the idea that sites that
are accessible to (say) blind or physically handicapped people are probably
going to be accessible to search engines too? Perhaps they advocate it a lot,
and I've missed it. But at a basic level, it is true. And if you can answer
the site developer's question WIFM ("what's in it for me?") you are half-way
there.

If I had one wish to cater for both causes, I would say: "provide a properly
structured site-map accessible from pretty well every page". A site map is
often what stops me walking away from a site for ever.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

Child Support Analysis

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

This site provides information & analysis of child support & the Child Support Agency in the UK, mainly for lobbyists, politicians, academics & media.

**Barry Pearson** · Jul 20 '05, 08:26 PM

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Tina Holmboe wrote:

I won't respond point by point. Here are just a few responses.
[color=blue]
> "Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> exclaimed in
> <bUKdb.1126$ft3 .2060502@newsfe p1-win.server.ntli .net>:[/color]
[snip][color=blue][color=green]
>> If you can't understand differences even in your own controlled
>> environment, who knows what will happen "out there"? So: "control
>> the controllables". It minimise risk and variety.[/color]
>
> None - claims to the contrary be damned - can know what will happen
> to a webpage when it reaches it's destination. The trick is to
> embrace that idea and live with it.[/color]

You missed the point. I was talking about what I see in my own controlled
environment (see my words), and I control that. THEN I publish the material,
and I confidently expect that sorting things out in my own environment will
greatly improve the perception of my published material in other environments.

I try to achieve very similar results in a useful set of browsers (with
default settings) on my PC before I upload. I take the trouble to understand
any differences, and where possible reduce or eliminate the differences using
W3C-compliant CSS. As a result, I have confidence that a majority of people in
the world using those browers will see similar results to what I see. Since
the CSS is W3C-compliant, I can expect that many future browsers, or
brower-versions, will also show my published work in a very similar way, if
they are used on their default settings.

I also expect this to improve over time. We are currently going through a
transition phase, where many users haven't reached the 21st century yet. That
is a temporary situation. Perhaps, in 10 years time, 99% (choose your own
number) of users who are browsing according to "media type = screen" will be
using user agents that conform to CSS2. Perhaps (choose your own number) 80%
or 90% will be using user agents conforming to CSS3. This will enable us to
vastly reduce, and typically eliminate, the rendering differences between just
about all the common browsers at their default settings, if we choose to.

At the moment, we are lucky if most browsers support HTML properly! As the
years go by, daft browers will become irrelevant and new ones will be far
better. CSS1, then CSS2, then CSS3 will in turn become rendered in vastly more
consistent ways. People will publish valid CSS rules for eliminating the
remaining differences, for example to eliminate differences in defaults. (I
currently need CSS2 to eliminate certain peculiarities in Mozilla Firebird,
and CSS3 to eliminate others. I use the former because W3C validates it. I
don't do the latter because it doesn't. In a few years time, W3C will validate
CSS3, I will make the changes to my CSSs, and Mozilla Firebird with its
default settings will render my pages like other user agents do).

We are moving towards a world where people who care will be able to ensure
that just about all the common browsers, used at their default setting for
media type = screen, will render their material in pretty much an identical
way. And this will only need validated HTML and validated CSS - no frigs or
hacks. Let's continue the discussion in 2013!

[snip][color=blue][color=green]
>> Note the thread (on uk.net.web.auth oring ) for the 2 articles above.
>> I started that to try to find out how to use alt" and "title" text
>> for thumbnails in photograph galleries. I now have a good view, and
>> may write it up. But there is little good advice on the web. And
>> much of what there is is out of date.[/color]
>
> Since you obviously know the WDG website, did you try the emminent
> article by Alan Flavell on the topic ? It is certainly the best one
> I know of in the field, and it does refer to thumbnails for images.[/color]

Perhaps you mean:

ALT texts in IMG

http://www.htmlhelp.com/feature/art3.htm

The Web Design Group's Feature Article, by Alan Flavell, discusses the proper use of ALT texts in IMGs.

I started the above thread about this:
http://groups.google.c om/groups?as_umsgi d=fpE3b.80$b82. 83115@newsfep1-win.server.ntli .net

Alan Flavell and many others contributed a lot. I read the above page quite
early on. With respect to Alan, it is a little bit out of date, and doesn't
really say "if you are a photographer producing thumbnail gallery, do this". I
want to write something that starts with what to do in specific circumstances,
and link to why. In other words, a process-oriented view.

For example, here is a reply to someone else:
http://groups.google.c om/groups?as_umsgi d=FfJ5b.4487$Ci 1.663381@newsfe p2-win.server.ntli .net

[snip]

I'm a competent IT person. I've snipped the obvious advice, while recognising
that it would be valuable for novices.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

Child Support Analysis

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

This site provides information & analysis of child support & the Child Support Agency in the UK, mainly for lobbyists, politicians, academics & media.

Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

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