> Andy Budd wrote: > So what do they believe the accessibility advantages of XHTML Strict > are? As far as I'm aware valid and semantically correct HTML is just as > accessible as XHTML strict. And I'm guessing they probably aren't > serving their pages up as XML so strictly speaking they are serving > their pages up as HTML anyway. > > This kind of pettiness and misunderstanding of accessibility really > gets my goat. > > It's a damn shame if you ask me ;-) > > Andy Budd > > http://www.message.uk.com/
There are a number of advantages to using HTML/XHTML Strict. Firstly, the term "strict" implies the strict separation between content and presentation. This is meant to have benefit for both user and developer (in an ideal world). It is meant to free up both the user and designer. Normally with think "STRICT", those W3C Nazis (like I saw recently on another list:-), but the whole idea behind Strict is the strict separation of content and presentation, ultimately aiming for both users and designers worlds to be much more free and flexible. That's the point. Using strict frees the markup of attributes that are bound to the content layer. This ideally frees the web pages to accommodate more flexible designs. With strict you could develop alternate style sheets, one with absolute units (to satisfy client requirements), and one with relative units (to satisfy accessibility requirements), whatever you want. If you use transitional, that is exactly what you are doing, and you may need to do it, strict may not work for your design because of current lack of support and other things, but you are using a DTD that is transitional between the aim of separating content and presentation, and mixing them together. It's basically a compromise. >From a developer's point of view, in large content systems, one of the major problems is separating content from presentation. It is very difficult to regenerate sites with fresh designs if this issue is not addressed at the foundation level. This also aids addressing accessibility issues. We just have to look at any of our own work, when better user agent support arrives in the future, and the customer requires a redesign, will we be able to leave the HTML/XHTML as is, and just modify the CSS, or will it require an overhaul of both? Regards Geoff Deering ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
