<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">If the true purpose of the irrelevant attribute is to aid in accessibility, then I think the name is completely wrong. The term "irrelevant" is confusing because, as I stated before, why would anyone include content in a page that is irrelevant? What you really need is a way to say "this is relevant only for non-visual UA's". Perhaps a better attribute name would be "nonvisual"?<br><br>-Nicholas<br><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">----- Original Message ----<br>From: James Graham <jg307@cam.ac.uk><br>To: html@nczonline.net<br>Cc: whatwg@lists.whatwg.org<br>Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 3:58:25 AM<br>Subject: @Irrelevant [was: Re: [whatwg] Thoughts on HTML
5]<br><br>
<a ymailto="mailto:html@nczonline.net" href="mailto:html@nczonline.net">html@nczonline.net</a>
wrote:<br><br>>
I
would
like
something
to
indicate
that
text
should
not
be
rendered
by
the
UA<br>> <br>but
still
remain
accessible.
Content
that
should
be
available
to
screen
readers<br>but
not
have
a
visual
representation
is,
in
fact,
relevant.<br><br>Indeed,
which
is
why
such
content
would
not
have
@irrelevant
set.
It
is
content <br>that
should
be
ignored
in
all
UAs
would
have
@irrelevant
set.
At
the
moment
AT <br>generally
tries
to
infer
semantics
from
the
presentation
layer
(this
is <br>display:none
so
it
must
be
irrelevant),
which
is
why
hacks
like
the
one
you <br>describe
are
needed.
The
irrelevant
attribute
allows
these
semantics
to
be <br>encoded
at
the
markup
layer.<br><br>The
biggest
problem
I
can
see
with
this
argument
for
@irrelevant
is
that
it's <br>not
quite
clear
to
how
to
get
from
where
we
are
today
(AT
takes
account
of
CSS <br>CSS
display
properties
rather
than
markup)
to
the
behavior
described
above.
If <br>rendering
display:none
content
that
doesn't
have
the
irrelevant
attribute
set <br>results
in
a
significantly
worse
web
experience
than
not
doing
so
then
AT <br>vendors
will
presumably
be
reluctant
change
behavior.
We
probably
need
some <br>investigation
into
the
effect
that
this
change
would
have
on
the
user
experience <br>for
AT
users.<br><br>-- <br>"Eternity's
a
terrible
thought.
I
mean,
where's
it
all
going
to
end?"<br>
--
Tom
Stoppard,
Rosencrantz
and
Guildenstern
are
Dead<br><br></div><br></div></div><br>
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