Re: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 for not correctly marking up table headers

Hi Peter,

The purpose of the F91 page is to demonstrate a ‘failure’, i.e. how not to do it.

“Techniques” are the bottom layer of the information provided with WCAG, the overview of that topic is the “Understanding” document:
https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/info-and-relationships

You’ll see from the techniques listed on that page that there are sufficient techniques which are how to do it.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of information to convey. Some people may be doing this as a hobby, others are tackling complex scenarios as part of their job and need detailed information. We try to cater to both as best we can, but a core requirement for our documents is to make clear what will pass or not-pass WCAG.

You might find the WAI tutorials more useful, which focus on showing simple ways to construct accessible websites:
https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/tables/

We are also working on a complete overhaul with WCAG 3.0, it is early stages, but one aim is to make it easier to digest.

Kind regards,

-Alastair



From: Peter Oates <peter@whitenap.plus.com>
Date: Thursday, 11 April 2024 at 21:51
To: public-agwg-comments@w3.org <public-agwg-comments@w3.org>
Subject: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 for not correctly marking up table headers
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Dear Sir,

I refer to the above Technique F91 and wish to point out that this article shows you how NOT to code a table. How much more useful it would be to include example(s) of how it should be done? Yes I have included <th> cells but the table in question is a single column with just four rows that are self explanatory. You cannot get much simpler.

I know you'll turn round and say "Well, look at a different page XXXX and it shows you." But "NO IT DOESN'T." It is not immediately apparent were you should look and you end up looking at pages that don't make things any clearer. In fact, they confuse matters by providing you with far too  much information that you weren't looking for so that your head starts to spin with overload. And when you do find the appropriate page it is so verbose,  long winded and convoluted, it all just seems like gobbledegook.

Keep the relevant information all together please. And keep it simple.

And I'm just doing this as a hobby. It's all enough to make you want to give up.

Yours earnestly,

Peter Oates

Website Manager
http://www.sotoncs.org.uk<http://www.sotoncs.org.uk/>