[thelist] Color Chooser Review -- correction

[aardvark]

> From: GregHolmes at aol.com
>
> > There's a real tendency, especially
> > on a list like this, to hold on to high ideals like browser
> > accessability,
> > but in the business world of dollars, things aren't so rosy.
>
> But, I think the original issue was whether or not to use the
> label tag?  And whether to override or change its default
> functionality (dotted outline upon selecting)?

and that is a situation where the business case being argued is a
veil for developer short-cuts and assumed user preference....

as you said in the part i snipped, a <label> is future-proof... when
the only excuse for not using it is because the developer doesn't
like the dotted lines, then it's not a business case being made at
all, and even accessibility doesn't apply... it's about making
assumptions on behalf of your users and ignoring better solutions
as a result...

as a non-handicapped-in-any-way user, i rely *heavily* on the
dotted lines in IE... i surf with at least a dozen windows, and cycle
them regularly... those dotted lines tell me where i left off when
surfing my logs, a list of links, or even a gallery of images...

if a developer tried to disable those dotted lines, i'd disable JS
(assuming the developer was using blur to hide them), and that
developer could stick the rest of the JS on the site elsewhere...

i didn't weigh in on that part of the discussion because of some
posturing...

but in short:

- there are exceptions to accessibility, but if you read existing law,
it's usually a *very* specific exception, and *rarely* affects
software applications (web or otherwise)...

- those exceptions should be treated as exceptions, not as veils to
gee-whiz or lazy coding practices...


--
Read the evolt.org case study
Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904151035/evoltorg
ISBN: 1904151035