RE: grids vs sortable tables

Bryan and Matt,

What all do you recommend for a structure for a sortable table. Is there an
ideal example? If you were looking at fixing a widely used library and
donating back the fix, what you want the widely used sortable table to look
like?  For instance, if you were looking at angularJS's ng-table what you
want changed?

                                                              
     Regards,                                                 
                                                              
    Fred Esch                                                 
 Watson, IBM, W3C                                             
  Accessibility                                               
                                                              
 IBM Watson       Watson Release Management and Quality       
                                                              






From: Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com>
To: Fred Esch/Arlington/IBM@IBMUS, Matt King
            <a11ythinker@gmail.com>
Cc: "'W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures'"
            <public-apa@w3.org>, "'Accessible Rich Internet Applications
            Working Group'" <public-aria@w3.org>
Date: 02/02/2016 12:57 PM
Subject: RE: grids vs sortable tables



It should still be possible to do something like the following.

<table>
<tr>
<th aria-sort="ascending">
<a href="#"> Name </a>
</th>
<th aria-sort="none">
<a href="#"> Email </a>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Twoflower
</td>
<td>
Inn-sewer-ants@discworld.com
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Or the same using its equivalent role=”table” on a simulated construct.
This is documented in the ARIA 1.1 spec for use with both tables and grids.



From: Fred Esch [mailto:fesch@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2016 5:46 AM
To: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com>
Cc: 'W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures' <public-apa@w3.org>;
'Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group' <public-aria@w3.org>
Subject: RE: grids vs sortable tables



Matt,

I assumed the table sortable attribute and the th sorted attributes were
passed on to AT. I assumed that when a sorted state was announced, the user
would know that you could sort on that column - using the mouse or enter
key. I didn't know the HTML attributes were going away.

Deque's sortable table example uses role of grid and aria-sort on the th
elements aria-sort='none' when it is sortable but not sorted by that
column. I would suggest making an W3C example for sortable tables since the
current HTML spec can cause confusion between grids and tables.



                                                     
     Regards,                                        
                                                     
    Fred Esch                                        
 Watson, IBM, W3C                                    
  Accessibility                                      
                                                     
 IBM Watson       Watson Release Management and      
                  Quality                            
                                                     






Inactive hide details for Matt King ---02/01/2016 02:49:12 PM---Fred,Matt
King ---02/01/2016 02:49:12 PM---Fred,

From: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com>
To: Fred Esch/Arlington/IBM@IBMUS, "'Steve Faulkner'" <
faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
Cc: "'Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group'" <
public-aria@w3.org>, "'W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures'" <
public-apa@w3.org>
Date: 02/01/2016 02:49 PM
Subject: RE: grids vs sortable tables




Fred,

Is it necessary to have a property on the table to tell the user that a
particular TH inside that table contains an interactive element for sorting
that column?

Matt

From: Fred Esch [mailto:fesch@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Monday, February 1, 2016 9:57 AM
To: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
Cc: Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group <public-aria@w3.org
>; W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures <public-apa@w3.org>
Subject: Re: grids vs sortable tables


Steve,

There are sortable tables being used in the wild, for example angularJS's
ng-table. How are developers supposed to tell AT users that a table is
sortable and a column can be sorted if the sortable and sorted properties
are removed?

Sortable tables are important for accessibility as they are often used as
an accessible alternative to charts. Even when you can make a chart
accessible, when you a huge number of data rows - you want a better way for
an AT user to find the max/min values than walking all the data members.
For instance, providing a sortable table will be more usable than having an
accessible bar chart and forcing an AT user to walk 200 bars to find the
top five bars. Personally, if I had to get the top five values from a huge
bar chart I would prefer a sortable table as well.


                                              
     Regards,                                 
                                              
    Fred Esch                                 
 Watson, IBM, W3C                             
  Accessibility                               
                                              
 IBM Watson       Watson Release Management   
                  and Quality                 
                                              






Inactive hide details for Steve Faulkner ---01/29/2016 04:58:04 PM---On 29
January 2016 at 20:07, Fred Esch <fesch@us.ibm.com> Steve Faulkner
---01/29/2016 04:58:04 PM---On 29 January 2016 at 20:07, Fred Esch <
fesch@us.ibm.com> wrote: > A table element can have a *'sort

From: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
To: Fred Esch/Arlington/IBM@IBMUS
Cc: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com>, Accessible Rich Internet
Applications Working Group <public-aria@w3.org>
Date: 01/29/2016 04:58 PM
Subject: Re: grids vs sortable tables






On 29 January 2016 at 20:07, Fred Esch <fesch@us.ibm.com> wrote:
            A table element can have a 'sortable' attribute which
            designates you can sort on columns.


note the table sorting algorithm and associated attribute have been removed
from the whatwg HTML spec due to a lack of implementer interest and suggest
the same fate will befall this feature in W3C HTML, sooner rather than
later.

--

Regards

SteveF
Current Standards Work @W3C

Received on Wednesday, 3 February 2016 14:00:44 UTC