Re: Understanding WCAG 2- SC 1.3.1

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Sailesh Panchang <spanchang02@yahoo.com>wrote:

> 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
>
> ================================
Response from the Working Group
================================
We have removed the sentence that discusses duplicating information, so that
this paragraph now reads:

There may also be cases where it may be a judgment call about what
information should appear in text and what would need to be directly
associated. However, wherever possible it is necessary for the information
to be programmatically determined rather than providing a text description
before encountering the table.


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