[whatwg] Authoring Re: several messages about HTML5

[Sander Tekelenburg]

At 17:33 -0500 UTC, on 2007-02-25, Adrian Sutton wrote:

>> [...] I don't think we should be too afraid to offer an authoring
>> tool that works a little different from what people are used to [...]
>
> Well, you can try and see what users think of it. For better or worse,
> forcing people to learn is not a popular option for users or integrators
> of editors.

Very true. Such a tool should therefore do its magic as much in the
background as possible. (And like you I see hurdles that will need to be
taken.)

Still, reality is that there is more and more legislation around the world
that requires at least certain parties to ensure their sites be accesible,
and thus does force people to learn to do things more right. So even if a
semantic editor would require its users to learn some things, it would still
in fact make their life easier than if they need to comply with such
legislation using an unfit wannabe-WYSIWYG tool.

That group (and a few others) seems a likely potential early adopter. Even if
it stays there it would be doing good, but once one or two such groups get
used to using such an editor, it will probably 'trickle down' to others.

(Btw, I realise there may seem to be some naivity on my part, but that's very
much on purpose ;) Cynicism just stops one from even trying.)

[...]

> If you can
> make it semantic and pretty, you've got a winner.

Agreed.


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>