May 22nd, 2008–May 23rd, 2008 in San Francisco, CA
August 20th, 2007, 6 PM in Seattle, WA
Jon’s post is really good and worth reading, but I’m actually linking to Joe Clark’s comment on it, in which he states, “Jeff is getting craftier at restating his ‘Real code isn’t all that important’ ideology.” I’m not quite sure what “real code” means, but I found it amusing to hear Joe put words in my mouth.
Since I don’t know what he means by “real code,” I can’t speak to whether or not he’s accurately paraphrasing my thoughts. The only code I can call myself any kind of expert on is HTML and CSS, and in the case of those, my only “ideology” is to write clean code that is as semantic as possible (in the case of HTML) and as valid as possible within the constraints of a given project (budget, timeframe, etc.). I can only presume this is what Joe’s referring to. Visit site »
Patrick really hits the nail on the head in this piece originally written for the UK’s .net magazine. He touches on a lot of the ideas I’ve been spouting off about around here lately — in particular, the fact that sometimes less-than-perfect is “good enough,” and in fact that sometimes having your designer focus on the big picture is a lot more valuable than having your designer spend his/her time making sure ampersands are encoded and every links has a title attribute. A few choice quotes:
As an accessibilista and web standards evangelist, I admit that this prospect seems anathema to the ideology I’ve been advocating for years. However, the pragmatist in me is willing to make certain small concessions when it comes to the purity and finesse of markup and styling if these are outweighed by increased production capacity and faster turnaround times, which ultimately aid in keeping a large content-driven site accurate and up-to-date.
…web authors should see content management systems as opportunities. Just as CSS frameworks and JavaScript libraries, they are simply tools that, when judiciously applied, can greatly enhance productivity by automating repetitive and mundane tasks. The creative act of crafting appropriate templates still requires technical expertise.
…any tool which can enable us to work smarter, not harder, should be seen in a positive light.
Bravo, Patrick. One of my favorite articles in quite a little while See also the super-sexy PDF version. Visit site »
Ian Lloyd, one of my Pro CSS Techniques co-authors and proprietor of Accessify.com, created this nice video showing users how to resize browser text in Firefox and IE 6 and 7. Ian put this together because he, like me, believes that it’s an all around bad idea for a web designer to include text resizing controls in a web page itself. Visit site »
This response to my controversial blog post is from almost a year ago, but I’m just seeing it today. It’s great. The guy doesn’t exactly agree with me on a lot of fronts, but he does seem to get that the brow-beating accessibility zealots are so adept at just isn’t productive. A good read. Visit site »
Roger says:
IE 7 does not, repeat not, resize pixel-sized text. It partly compensates for that by allowing the user to scale/zoom the entire page, including images (which quickly leads to massive horizontal scrolling because of its bad implementation).
He’s right, of course. However, anyone who uses this fact that suggest that there’s still an accessibility issue with pixel-sized text in IE7 is wrong.
IE7 can increase the size of text set in pixels. Roger can make the distinction between text zoom and page zoom all he wants, but the bottom line is that you can increase the size of text set in pixels in IE7. Yes, it’s a full page zoom and not just a text zoom, but it’s still resizing the text set in pixels — right?
The fact that IE7’s implementation doesn’t make resizing the text as convienent as Firefox or Safari’s doesn’t matter. Accessibility and convienence are not the same thing. Don’t confuse them.
Accessibility gurus can no longer claim this as an accesibility problem with IE7. Period.
Me, I’m with Nathan Smith:
At least IE7 can zoom. As for me, I’m done baby-sitting Microsoft’s sorry attempts to produce a browser. We can only coddle the weakest link for so long, until it’s time to just say - Goodbye, laggards. Visit site »
Jakob’s ten most egregious offenses against users are mostly the same things he’s been railing on about for years. As with most Nielsen musings, his ideas are largely good, but his writing style, attitude, and absolutism are annoying at best and offensive at worst. Visit site »
Exactly one month later, my accessibility discussion still has some people’s panties in a bunch. Who knew people cared what I thought? Visit site »
James has a little something to say to “John,” which may refer to a real person, but doesn’t need to. There are a lot of “Johns” out there, especially in the accessibility community. So, “John,” whoever you are — listen up. You just might learn something. Visit site »
Although the author is completely inaccurate when he says that I think “accessibility has been taken too far,” and “accessibility and visual design/development are somehow at odds with each other,” (I never said either of those things!) he makes a lot of good points regarding the two fields and how they should interoperate with one another. I have no idea who wrote this or what their background is, as the article provides no context. Oh well. worth reading anyway. Visit site »
While the article itself is somewhat interesting, the title alone once again proves my theory that many of those in the accessibility community are incapable of discussing their field without turning into whiny little bitches and making matters personal. I tried to comment on Martin’s post, pointing out that it was one more example of accessibility discussions degenerating into personal attacks and name-calling, and he e-mailed me to tell me that he wouldn’t approve my comment because there’s “no trolling (allowed) on this blog.” Once they grow the hell up, maybe someone will start paying attention to them. Visit site »
Great article by Luke Stevens on the way that accessibility is sometimes sold like snake oil. Accessibility Consultant Guy is often right up there with SEO Guy when it comes to the slimeball factor. A lot of Luke’s concerns are similar to mine, only he is better at stating them. :) Visit site »
James Bennett’s take on accessibility clearly outlines what accessibility is, and perhaps more importantly, what it is now. Visit site »
“A part of the problem of accessibility mavens who whine…lies in confusing Accessibility, i.e. being able to access content, with personal comfort.” A-freaking-men. Visit site »
Amen, Joe. A-f’ing-men. The worst part about these ridculous guidelines is the fact that governments, universities, and other public orginizations often blindly accept them as some kind of law, rending it nearly impossible to do anything interesting on the web at those institutions. Visit site »
A revised version of a previously described script that will open links that have a certain class name in a new window. I’m no Javascript expert, but the way Roger is handling this seems really smart to me. Visit site »
Derek Featherstone ribs me good for my free iPod habits in the latest Digital Web interview. Derek, I fully intend to bitch slap you at SXSW. :) Seriously, though — good interview, go read it. Visit site »