Re: [docbook] http://docbook.sourceforge.net/ problem

["Michael(tm) Smith" <smith@xml-doc.org>]

Steven,

Thanks. I stand by the basic design -- the principle of
hiding/showing parts of the page based on user interaction.

But I will concede that I hadn't considered the case of how a user
without a mouse is meant to navigate through it. DaveP has a more
acute awareness of accessibility issues than me. I hadn't thought
about the mouse-only problem until he pointed it out. Another
issue I can see with it is that you don't need to crank the font
size up too high before the text starts to spill out of the
panes/boxes it is meant to fit it. So to visually impaired users
who need to have their font size set relatively high, the design
is probably not very appealing at all.

Anyway, I have made the "text only" version of it. Though I guess
that is not the best way to name it. Perhaps it should be called
the "viewable/usable in any browser" version.

But there will be a lot more websites and "web apps" moving to
relying on Javascript and Ajax behavior -- drag and drop, multiple
windows, interactive features -- that will not degrade gracefully
in such a way as to be usable in browsers such as lynx or elinks,
and not be navigable without a mouse. I think a lot of designers
are eventually going to need to get back to figuring out how to
make their sites and web apps accessible again to everybody.

  --Mike

Steven Cogorno <Steven.Cogorno@Sun.COM> writes:

> On Jan 3, 2006, at 6:25 PM, Dave Pawson wrote:
> >Is there any real reason for choosing such
> >a weak design?
> 
> Dave,
> 
> I wouldn't classify this a "weak design" at all.  It's certainly  
> different that what people might expect.  In my opinion, it's an  
> excellent way to present top-level items neatly and compactly while  
> still having the ability to see expanded information for the relevant  
> topic.
> 
> 
> Steven Cogorno
> Sun Microsystems
> 
> 

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://tokyo.metblogs.com/
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/890

smime.p7s