-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Buddy Quaid Sent: Tue 4/10/2005 13:32 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] avoid Verdana -> I cant get the whole point. > I think there's something fundamentally wrong when a discussion about what > font you should and shouldn't use is brought up in the context of web > standards.
Why? Discussion of that allows us to make informed design/typography decisions
that would otherwise result in a less-than-optimal user experience for
"minority" user groups. Actually... I agree, web standards is wrong. Best
practices and accessibility/usability, however, fit this discussion (IMHO)
quite nicely.
"Web standards" (as this whole quagmire is unfortunately known) aren't really
about standards at all. Shock, horror. Go stick that in a validator. We
occasionally lose sight of the reasons for pursuing these "standards"
(technically "recommendations", sometimes not even that) -- namely, catering
for a wider audience irrespective of browsing technology (IE, Lynx, PDAs,
Google); future-proofing information through semantic markup; and (this is true
in a professional context, at least) improving ROI for businesses websites.
If the second reason there was our only cause, you're right, discussion about
design and typography would be irrelevant. But the first and third reasons mean
it's something we should worry about: firstly because we want to deliver the
best possible experience (I know this sounds like marketing crap, sorry!) for
all platforms -- and this means using the best fonts wherever possible (or
relevant -- it's not for Google or JAWS, etc.) --, and secondly because
(subject to the same condition of relevance) image _does_ matter for a number
of websites out there... and CSS("standards")-based design can help achieve
this, because you've got more than one shot at specifying fonts to target
different platforms... amongst other things, like handheld stylesheets, etc.
</rant>
Josh
--
Joshua Street
base10solutions
http://www.base10solutions.com.au/
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