Re: TBODY

Hi Ramon,

I like your optimism
>>In my opinion, screen readers should provide an option to indicate the 
>>order in which the user wants to read <tfoot> information.<<

However, as Jan says, it only recently that Jaws has worked out how to 
deliver <tfoot> AFTER the table data. (Remember Jaws cost $1,000 !!)

If the <tfoot> contains global information then it is in the wrong place. 
global information should be presented before the data (perhaps in the 
summary :)

Let's admit it, <tbody> etc. should only be used when you are offering your 
visitor a printable option.

Regards
Richard
www.userite.com


-----Original Message----- 
From: Ramón Corominas
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 8:01 PM
To: Jan Eric Hellbusch
Cc: 'Userite' ; 'Andy Keyworth' ; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: TBODY

I am not sure that the reading order of a table should always be
thead-tbody-tfoot. Maybe it seems more logical, but in many cases it can
also reduce usability.

Most tables that have a <tfoot> include important information there such
as footnotes or global information for the table that users must know to
understand the main <tbody> information. In my opinion, screen readers
should provide an option to indicate the order in which the user wants
to read <tfoot> information.

Regards,
Ramón.

Jan wrote:


>> In practice, 99% of the times that I come across <tbody> etc. it is just 
>> cluttering
>> up the HTML code to no purpose whatsoever.
>
> Agree. Over the years many people claimed THEAD, TFOOT and TBODY should be 
> used properly, so screenreaders can deal with the data. The only thing 
> that sort of went wrong was that when using those elements correctly, the 
> footer is placed between header and bodies. The reading sequence was then 
> obviously incorrect.
> Because the elements are for printers and not for screenreaders, I tried 
> to get people to use them only for long tables and even then the sequence 
> (head, footer, bodies) was not satisfactory. It seems that JAWS has fixed 
> this issue since version 11. Tables marked up with THEAD, TFOOT and TBODY 
> can be read in correct order in JAWS when using table navigation key 
> strokes.

Received on Friday, 25 January 2013 00:05:24 UTC