Sign your work

ukgeoff · #1 Sep 20th, 2006, 21:44

I've added this to the stcky in this forum but thought I would place a seperate thread to raise awareness, hopefully interest and allow comment.

Sign your work:
What this means is giving your pages an identity that browsers can recognise.

Why you might ask? The answer is increased accessibility.

A lot of people do not realise that the <html> tag can have an id just like any other tag.

Lets assume that you have coded the following:

<html id='mysiteid'>

It's usual to use the site's actual domain name, but without the hyphens, dots, etc.

Now if an end-user is going to be a regular visitor to your site but need to adjust font, colour, etc., because of accessibility needs, they can create, or have created for them, a local style sheet which is coded up as follows:

#mysiteid h1{
...
}

#mysiteid p {
...
}

and so on.

Now every time they visit your site, the pages are automatically adjusted to meet that user's requirements.

Ryan Fait · #2 Sep 20th, 2006, 22:19

To be honest, I don't see the sense in this.

JacobHaug · #3 Sep 20th, 2006, 23:05

I don't either. You think the average user is going to know how to make a CSS style sheet. For Example... My parents? I don't think so. I have seen some websites, where the user can adjust font color and size, with the click of a button. But adding on that code, as easy as it may be, is not going to help someone like my parents. But that is just my opinion.

Ryan Fait · #4 Sep 21st, 2006, 00:20

Aside from the average user not knowing what to do, if you have h3.blue set up in your stylesheet, a local stylesheet won't adjust the style with #mysite h1. If they're going through the hassle of changing your site, why wouldn't they just duplicate the stylesheet entirely and change it instead of trying to add to it?

If there is another point to this, I missed it entirely.

JacobHaug · #5 Sep 21st, 2006, 02:57

Yep I missed it as well. Please Explain ukgeoff.

ukgeoff · #6 Sep 21st, 2006, 21:13

I think the point your missing is it's about giving the end user options.

The cost to you, the developer, to include this is trivial. You can explain its availability in the section on your site about accessibility.

Just as it's good practice to use em's rather than px's to specify font sizes. It gives the end user options.

Remember also that a users local css file takes priority over other style sheets unless you have used the !important override.

I don't think we give people with accessibility needs enough credit. If you have a need and there are ways you can improve the situation, you will learn how to make the tools work for you.

JacobHaug · #7 Sep 22nd, 2006, 02:19

I understand. It is always good practice to give the user as many options as possible. Plus it is not like that is really hard to do. Just one line of code. Thanks for the explanation!!

Ryan Fait · #8 Sep 22nd, 2006, 02:50

Yeah, you should probably add the extra description to the sticky. It's good to know and I'll probably start implementing that.

leoj · #9 Sep 22nd, 2006, 03:37

What kind of web pages is this goood for? ex: you might respond"A picture gallery site"

don't tell me a css site >.<

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