Where is the line drawn? You've just overridden a user's possible
font color, alignment and font family preferences.
Not really.
Yes really - the styles are there in plain view. If a user has a
serif preference, you've overridden it. If a user has a preference
for a certain background color, you've overridden it. If a user has
a preference for a certain text color, you've overridden it. If a
user has a preference for a certain text alignment, you've overridden
it.
That page is 4,549 bytes, of which 1,989 bytes are CSS. 937
bytes make up the rest of <head>, leaving <body> at 1,623 bytes,
including markup. With markup removed, there remains a total of 411
characters, including spaces, line feeds, and carriage returns,
none of
which are contained within <p> </p>. 251 of those 411 bytes make up a
disclaimer in the footer, and 16 are unavoidably contained in two
images. The 144 character balance, including whitespace, is title
text,
and link text.
And that has relevance how? Content is content, no matter how little
or great.
So, even though the CSS body rule does specify
"sans-serif", and high contrat colors, and text alignment,
Bingo.
there isn't
any _content_ text of the type I meant for it to apply to. It's a
foyer
or mini-portal page, entirely the kind of "content" one would
expect to
have "design" styles applied to.
So now you, the page author, can exercise control over what "content"
that "one would expect" to have visual design applied to?
Interesting that there seems to be a double standard.
A title, three main links, and one
minor link in this case make up the "content".
Still content.
Surely if every user's preferences are so precious there should be no
author styles applied whatsoever, because there is the *possibility*
that it may vary somehow from the user's preference.
I don't think I've seen anyone in the thread say implicitly or
explicitly that no author styles should be used. That extreme position
is nothing if not ludicrous.
As ludicrous as not expecting users and browser vendors to have equal
responsibility in accessibility/usability.
The difference in actual positions is one
of degree of restraint, the difference between invoking a rule for
every
possibility (maximum "control"), and dressing only the things that
need
dressing to give a page/site a distinctive flavor (far less control).
What you determine as the things that need dressing could be (and I
warrant the majority of the time are) different than what most site
authors deem necessary for dressing.
Lest we forget, the vast majority of web page visitors are using
*personal* computers.
Absolutely - therefore they have the ability to personally decide to
use (or not use) the tools available to them.
There's no reason a good web page design can't be
a blend of both author and visitor personalization.
I couldn't agree more.
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