[WEB4LIB] Re: Web page color & accessibility

[Mezynski, Andrzej]

-----Original Message-----
From: Patricia F Anderson
Perhaps a bigger issue? I have found that many web pages with white text
are unprintable. The text will not print. Some browsers allow the user
to
set this so white text prints black, but not all browsers. Sometimes
when
the user sets this, it backfires -- as in you print black text on a
maroon
background, and that is little more helpful than white on white.
Personally, I find using white text as thoughtless of the user as
squeezing images down to size with file tags, and then having them print
so they block out the text. If we are designing a web site for a very
small controlled group, where we control their browser, version, and
platform, and do not allow them access from home or other uncontrolled
environments, well, then do what you like. If you are designing for a
diverse population, then you must acknowledge that diversity, and design
responsibly for a diverse audience.

My two cents worth.

Patricia Anderson, pfa at umich.edu
------------------------------------------------
I fully agree with you Patricia.   However, I want to mention a little trick
I show to students when they encounter "dark background", fancy-shmancy
(shamancy :-) animations or otherwise "unprintable" pages, but they are
really desperate and want to print the text:
Select the text you need > go to edit > copy > open word processor > edit
>paste special > paste unformatted text (unformatted to eliminate all the
HTML codes, tables and images).
The text often needs additional editing (removing extra lines and spaces),
but it works MOST of the time.  Of course, I always remain students to
copy/paste the author, title, publisher, URL, etc. to have the proper data
for citing.

One more cent :-)

Andy Mezynski
mezynsab at lacitycollege.edu