Comment- Techniques for WCAG 2

Refer: HTML techniques #H39 - Description 

Problem text :
"The objective of this technique is to identify data tables using the
caption element. The caption is shown on the screen and reported by screen
readers.
This technique may be a good choice when tables are difficult to identify,
for example, when text immediately preceding the table does not refer
directly to the table, or when there are multiple tables in the same Web
unit. 
The caption element is similar to a heading. Unlike a heading element
(h1-h6), however, the caption element is part of the table itself.
Therefore, using caption ensures that information identifying the table is
always kept with the table."

Comment type: Description is too verbose and  imprecise. Caption is a table
identifier and is useful regardless of whether there is one or more tables
on a page.  In the absence of captions too one can navigate to different
tables as well as identify them distinctly using a screen reader. A caption
can also be marked up with an h<n> tag.

Proposed: The caption for a table is a table identifier  and is like  a
title or heading for the table. A caption is the appropriate markup for such
text and it ensures that the table identifier appears along with the table.
Screen reading software allows one to navigate directly to the caption for a
table if one is present.   

Sailesh Panchang
Senior Accessibility Engineer
Deque Systems Inc. (www.deque.com)
11130 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite #140,
Reston VA 20191
Phone: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)
E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com

Received on Tuesday, 27 February 2007 18:00:30 UTC