Re: Understanding WCAG 2- SC 1.3.1

Loretta and WG,
Thanks for the response. 
Sorry, I disagree. A sighted user can only associate the data table with some explanatory text in a paragraph on the page by reference to  a sentence in the text that refers to the table like, "In the accompanying table ..." or "Table-1 refers to ...".
Programmatic association does not help the sighted user. A screen reader user too will be in the same position and he must not have to access this content twice - once through table's summary attribute. Programmatic association is not required here.  Programmatic association / markup is required to expose structure / relationships that may not be otherwise quickly or easily apparent to assistive technology users.
In fact it is misuse or misapplication of table summary if it duplicates page-text. The summary is meant to assist non-sighted users understand table structure of complex tables or salient / key data revealed by the table which is evident to sighted users.
Thanks,
Sailesh Panchang

be --- On Wed, 3/23/11, Loretta Guarino Reid <lorettaguarino@google.com> wrote:

From: Loretta Guarino Reid <lorettaguarino@google.com>
Subject: Re: Understanding WCAG 2- SC 1.3.1
To: "Sailesh Panchang" <spanchang02@yahoo.com>
Cc: public-comments-wcag20@w3.org
Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 12:33 PM

On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Sailesh Panchang <spanchang02@yahoo.com> wrote:

Refer: http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2010/WD-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-20100923/

Understanding SC 1.3.1

Under Intent it states:

“it may be most appropriate to duplicate some information (for instance, in an HTML table, providing the summary both in the paragraph before the table

and in the summary attribute of the table itself).”

Comment: Not sure why summary attribute needs to be present  if it duplicates text in para abobe.

This is giving fodder to those who wish to banish the summary attribute.

If this duplication is alright,  why then  having alt that is identical to anchor text in image link not alright?

Thanks,

Sailesh Panchang

Web Accessibility Specialist

www.deque.com



================================

Response from the Working Group

================================
With the table, the text in the paragraph above is not programmatically associated with the table (except if using WAI-ARIA). The summary is linked. With your second example, both texts are programmatically associated to the link.




Loretta Guarino Reid, WCAG WG Co-Chair

Gregg Vanderheiden, WCAG WG Co-Chair

Michael Cooper, WCAG WG Staff Contact





On behalf of the WCAG Working Group

Received on Wednesday, 23 March 2011 19:12:59 UTC