Re: HTML5 alternatives to table summary don't work in current browsers, and Screen Readers

On Sat, 22 Jun 2013 00:38:55 +0200, Richard Schwerdtfeger  
<schwer@us.ibm.com> wrote:

> "Charles McCathie Nevile" <chaals@yandex-team.ru> wrote on 06/21/2013
> 04:29:55 PM:
>
>> From: "Charles McCathie Nevile" <chaals@yandex-team.ru>
>> To: Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS, w3c-wai-gl@w3.org,
>> public-html-a11y@w3.org, "David MacDonald" <david100@sympatico.ca>,
>> Cc: "'Steve Faulkner'" <sfaulkner@paciellogroup.com>,
>> mick@nvaccess.org, kirsten@can-adapt.com
>> Date: 06/21/2013 04:30 PM
>> Subject: Re: HTML5 alternatives to table summary don't work in
>> current browsers, and  Screen Readers
>>
>> On Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:05:17 +0200, David MacDonald
>> <david100@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>> > Hi Richard
>>
>> > A small correction to your take on what I said in my post. I actually
> did
>> > not make a recommendation to return to table Summary. I am simply
>> > documenting that as we enter into recommendation status, the advice we
>
>> > are providing to web authors fails WCAGs conformance requirement of
>> > accessibility support. And the example techniques listed currently
> don't
>> > help blind folks... even though web authors trust us to give them
> useful
>> > advice.
>> >
>> > There are certainly well documented disadvantages (and advantages) to
>> > the Summary attribute but until AT catches up on replacements, and
>> > they have had several years to do so, we are looking at another of
>> > those awful gaps that work on paper but not in the real world for
>> > blind folks.
>> >
>> > From: Richard Schwerdtfeger [mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com]
>> [...]
>> >> Let's stick with a consistent set of APIs (ARIA) that developers can
>> >> go to as much as possible for one stop shopping.
>> >
>> >> I have alerted Freedom Scientific of the defect and they will fix it.
>>
>> Do you have some timeline for that?
>>
> They are working on it as we speak. Beyond that I am not in a position to
> share Freedom Scientific product release date.

That's enough for me. But it is important to have a real expectation and  
not just a hope...

>> [...]
>> >> We can't be writing specs. based on proprietary assistive technology
>> >> defects.
>>
>> Actually, part of the HTML5 revolution was that instead of writing  
>> things that ought to work, we should be relying on what *does*.
>>
>> The "proprietary technology" whose defects could derail us are the
>> fundamental products people are relying on. In the absence of viable
>> alternatives, and without fixing those products, we're not ready to  
>> claim that we have produced a spec that is actually useful to anybody.
>>
> I appreciate that but this is a bug. We had one feature in ARIA that we
> added for a work-around in a design flaw in JAWS that was fixed in JAWS.  
> It is something that I have regretted ever since.

Yes, and it isn't the only case of this happening. But there is a balance  
that we need to find. The clearer we can be aout what we expect to happen,  
and the better we can stand on a record of our expectations being met, the  
easier it is to deal with these issues. But they are real, and don't have  
a general solution...

>> That may only be a temporary setback, but the lesson of the past is that
>> temporary might last a generation (or their opportunity to get a useful
>> education). We should be careful about charging ahead and saying stuff
>> works, even while we don't want to try and stop real progress.
>>
> Sure. If we have a bug though let's report it and get it fixed. That is
> happening now and I am glad David reported it. In the future, if you have
> bug with an AT over ARIA support please let me know directly. I may be  
> able to help. I don't always monitor this list.

Yeah, sounds like we have a good result here. Smiles all around, and let's  
go see if there is some more stuff that we should be working on (just in  
case we haven't finished yet :) ).

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Saturday, 22 June 2013 05:36:50 UTC