[Irl-dean] Email fonts

[Bob Allen]

Mark,

I think we should tackle difficulties at all levels. There are many people
who are simply past their "sell-by" date, like me. We can handle a normally
written email, in normal font. So why not use one? If there is an issue in
the translation between Lotus and Microsoft - as Brenda suspects - then it's
no harm to know that and try and do something about it.

Bob



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Magennis [mailto:mark.magennis at ncbi.ie]
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2003 11:40 AM
To: irl-dean at list.eeng.dcu.ie
Subject: [Irl-dean] Email fonts


Bob Allen said:
I think if Brenda increased her Font size it would improve accessibility to
her email message for the visually impaired, and the old duffers who need
glasses - like me.

I reply:
Ah true Bob, but to be fair Brenda didn't use a fixed size font, so you can
increase it to whatever size your eyesight prefers. Do you think it is
reasonable to expect people to be able to do this in their email reading
software? There is another issue with Brenda's email though, and with your
reply. Both are HTML rather than plain text. I've noticed that there are
discussions on the WAI list to the effect that HTML should not be used for
email since it may cause problems for some people. I have never had the time
to try to understand the arguments around this but I am curious since, as
Barry often points out, properly marked up HTML should be a good solution
for universally accessibility. Also, I notice that many people within NCBI,
including blind people, use HTML email. So I'm wondering what the problems
might be in practice. Can anyone tell me whether we should try to avoid
using HTML mail in general and on this list in particular?

Thanks, Mark


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