[whatwg] Fallback styles for legacy user agents [was: Re: Deprecating <small> , <b> ?]

Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis bhawkeslewis at googlemail.com
Sun Nov 30 06:21:55 PST 2008


timeless wrote:
> in the case of aural css, the screen reader user agents have clearly
> reviewed the mistakes of prior features and i congratulate them on
> their decision not to invest in this area.

Note that some screen readers (for example Emacspeak and Orca, IIRC) do 
use a subset of speech CSS internally.

The core arguments against allowing authors to specify speech CSS are 
also applicable to allowing authors to specify visual CSS. For example, 
visual CSS can seriously mess with the user experience of people with 
poor eyesight or learning disabilities, who are hardly insubstantial 
constituencies.

As long as the principle is preserved that publisher CSS is not required 
to consume documents and use applications, I don't see any strong enough 
reason to prohibit styling. Ultimately, a user agent or user can always 
reject presentational fluff.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis



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