Re: What shall we do with the W3C DOM?

by Christopher Higgs <chiggs(at)unimelb.edu.au>

Date:	Mon, 11 Nov 2002 09:03:20 +1100
To:	Jeff Nelson <nelsonj(at)telocity.com>, Peter-Paul Koch <gassinaumasis(at)hotmail.com>
Cc:	thelist(at)lists.evolt.org, hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
References:	hotmail
	todo: View Thread, Original

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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