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<https://dequeuniversity.com/library/aria/tables/sf-sortable-grid> 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<mailto:a11ythinker@gmail.com>>
To: Fred Esch/Arlington/IBM@IBMUS, "'Steve Faulkner'" <faulkner.steve@gmail.com<mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com>>
Cc: "'Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group'" <public-aria@w3.org<mailto:public-aria@w3.org>>, "'W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures'" <public-apa@w3.org<mailto: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<mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com>>
Cc: Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group <public-aria@w3.org<mailto:public-aria@w3.org>>; W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures <public-apa@w3.org<mailto: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<mailto:fesch@us.ibm.com>> wrote: > A table element can have a *'sort

From: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com<mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com>>
To: Fred Esch/Arlington/IBM@IBMUS
Cc: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com<mailto:a11ythinker@gmail.com>>, Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group <public-aria@w3.org<mailto: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<mailto: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<http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/03/current-standards-work-at-w3c/>