Re: [Spam] Re: More on <CAPTION> element etc

James Graham wrote:
> non-visual UAs won't read out the caption before the table body, regardless of source order?

They will if the CAPTION is at the beginning before the table content.
It is however often after the table, as that has traditionally been
where its placed for visual users but it can (should) be in the source
code before the table content and then styled to be presented at the
bottom if desired.

> I would expect <caption> to be the _first_ thing they would look at for a description of the table, irrespective of where it appears.

Absolutely. On another point, the user should not have to look for the
CAPTION, or @summary or whatever the @newthing could be. This is for a
very simple reason, many screen reader users are not advanced users of
the technology, and asking them to navigate even the most basic tables
is often a cause of discomfort as many just do not know how to
interrogate data tables. Its also not enough to use "Well thats a user
agent issue" as a get out clause, even if it is.

What I am trying to say is every effort should be made to make this
process (understanding the table) as easy as possible. This can already
be done by using @summary which the UA automatically picks up without
the user having to do anything.

Josh

Received on Thursday, 21 June 2007 13:26:03 UTC