- From: Gez Lemon <g.lemon@webprofession.com>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:38:45 +0000
- To: Cynthia Shelly <cyns@microsoft.com>
- Cc: HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>
Hi Cynthia, 2010/1/14 Cynthia Shelly <cyns@microsoft.com>: > The intro to the summary section now reads: > > <blockquote> > > The summary attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose for user > agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech and Braille. > > Earlier versions of HTML suggested using summary to provide structural > information about the table. This version adds the orientation attributeto > allow user agents to derive that information from the table markup. I don't understand how an orientation attribute could define the structure in the same way the summary attribute was originally intended to explain the structure. From what I understand, the orientation attribute defines the reading order for the table (horizontal, vertical, or none) but that often depends on what you're interested in. For example, if you have a bus timetable with destination stations in the columns, and departure times in the rows, the summary would probably be something like: summary="The rows contain departure times from this station; the columns contain the destinations for that service" I would read it vertically to find the departure time I need, and then horizontally to determine the destination time. I can't imagine when an orientation attribute would actually be helpful. Even if the user knows the expected way of reading the data table is horizontally, they still need to investigate a few data cells in order to build up a picture of the structure, whereas the summary attribute was intended to provide that information. Regards, Gez -- _____________________________ Supplement your vitamins http://juicystudio.com http://twitter.com/gezlemon
Received on Thursday, 14 January 2010 10:39:18 UTC