3 thoughts on “SVG Text, Semantics, and Accessibility

  1. Hi Doug,

    this is nice stuff. I wrote something similar in the old SVG accessibility note, with some RDF that is also not exactly what I would use now. I think you are right about microformats. As well as the risk of semantic drift (which only matters if they succeed, but I think is inherently likely) there is the problem of not having a disambiguation mechanism that allows for real decentralisation on the scale of the web. While RDF is not something beautiful for hand authoring, I don’t thnk many things that collect large amounts of real data are – that’s why they tend to be done by computers. (Chemistry is a classic example of an industry that has been relying on computers for many years – especially in areas like pharmaceutical research where these things are large-scale problems, not just minor questions of making a blog look cooler). I like the way that XBL allows you to blend languages together, having semantics and presentation seperated in the sense that you can easily determine which is which, even when they are part of the same collection of information shippe over the wire.

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