[ricardobeat]

God, no. Please don't help to spread this horseshit.

Here are the user agents that make use of it:

- ChromeVox: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kgejglhpjiefppelpm...

- NVDA: http://www.nvda-project.org/

- Window-Eyes: http://www.gwmicro.com/window-eyes/

- VoiceOver: http://www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/

- JAWS: http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-pa...

- Orca: http://live.gnome.org/Orca/

And two dozen others. And here a few living human beings that benefit from it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwoe7OjIxpw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pntGp00HHr8, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAw0SIkXm1o, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBzSXIEusoU, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zSTJwIULYU, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_TFHqIHBqM

285 million people are visually impaired in the world. Putting aside the SEO, meta-data and other discussions, I think this is a pretty meaningful argument in favor of doing it right.

[andybak]

You (and I to a certain extent) need to be more specific. You've provided a list of screen readers. What I was really trying to say was "when someone argues that a particular markup or technique has benefits, then they need to demonstrate a real user with a real need who will benefit using shipping technology".

So we would need to pick a particular point of contention and then we can argue the toss.

[andybak]

PS If you read the Mark Pilgrim IRC logs he caricatured the response he often found when criticising any aspect of accessibility best-practise as "OMG!!! YOU HATE BLIND PEOPLE!!!". It's an effective way of shutting down debate and doesn't help anyone.