[thelist] Re: What shall we do with the W3C DOM?

Christopher Higgs chiggs at unimelb.edu.au
Sun Nov 10 20:45:01 CST 2002


Rejoining the conversation after coping with the joys of a major server crash:

At 09:37 PM 8/11/2002 -0500, Jeff Nelson wrote:
>Actually, I believe we *could* rewrite pages according to the wishes of
>the user. Should we?

When it results in greater usability and accessibility, the answer can only
be "yes".

>As a user, I appreciate having maximum control, but do even I want to
>configure every page/site I visit?

User selection isn't always necessary!!  In many cases the "HTML page"
could be customised to the browser that I am using.  The site should be
smart enough to detect if I'm using a computer or a WAP device and serve
the appropriate version.

As for "user selection" - a choice that says "printer-friendly version" or
"customised for voice browsers" would be no different to what is currently
available.  The BIG difference is that the two documents would come from a
common source, not from different sources (which often results in the
text-only "accessible" version getting out of sync with the real content).


Chris Higgs
Manager, New Learning Technology
ILFR, University of Melbourne
http://www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au/
Phone: +61 3 8344 9749  Fax: + 61 3 9348 2156




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