Re: Some questions about data tables

   
Hi Len:
That's a good question.  speaking strictly as one user of one particular screen reader, Jaws For windows Version 3.2,  
in the the case of  Excel 97, 
the short answer is, no, but with advanced features which would be off topic here, I think the answer would be yes.
There is a difference between saying the cell coordinates (e.g. "A1,B1,...,A2,B2,...) and the headings, presumably always in row 1?

-Steve



>>> "Leonard R. Kasday" <kasday@acm.org> 01/03/00 04:51PM >>>
Another approach to making data accessible is to provide a link to the data 
in a format compatible with spreadsheets.  The user can then open the data 
in a spreadsheet and travel up, down, left, and right.

We used this approach at 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/reep/wanted.html 

We used comma separated variables (.csv) so the file could also be read 
sensibly by a straight screenreader treating it as a text file.

Does anyone know of any setups with spreadsheets and screen readers that 
read the headings as the person travels through the rows and columns?  That 
would make this technique even more useful.

Len


At 03:38 AM 1/3/00 -0500, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>So far as I know emacspeak is the only screen-reader (and it isn't really a
>screen reader but an audio-based operating system) that actualy identifies
>cells in columns at the moment, although some editing browsers also provide
>this function.
>
>Charles McCN
>
>On Mon, 3 Jan 2000, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>
>   Janet,
>
>   as I understand it you are correct in your simple example - that will
>   linerise nicely. I am not sure what there is implemented within 
> browsers - I
>   suspect not much to judge by the discussions in the User Agent Guidelines
>   list, but there is a tablin tool developed by W3C through the WAI-ER 
> group -
>   http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG - to lineraise tables, which provides various
>   methods of linearising tables and choosing which headers should be 
> included.
>
>   cheers
>
>   Charles McCN
>
>   On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, Janet Parkinson wrote:
>
>     I have some questions concerning the design of data tables. I was 
> wondering
>     if anyone would be able to give me any answers on them? There are three -
>
>     1 What is the proportion of screen readers that are currently capable of
>     associating headings and data cells by reading the mark-up of a table?
>
>
>--
>Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 409 134 136
>W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                    http://www.w3.org/WAI 
>21 Mitchell Street, Footscray, VIC 3011,  Australia (I've moved!)

-------
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
Department of Electrical Engineering
Temple University
423 Ritter Annex, Philadelphia, PA 19122

kasday@acm.org 
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday 

(215) 204-2247 (voice)
(800) 750-7428 (TTY)

Received on Tuesday, 4 January 2000 11:38:42 UTC