[Bug 13539] Specify reading and navigation order

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13539

--- Comment #6 from Greg Lowney <gcl-0039@access-research.org> 2012-01-16 23:02:47 UTC ---
<th scope="col"> would not be sufficient for tables because it is only usable
on tables that have heading rows or columns, whereas tables are often used
without them. Thus, tables require a separate attribute such as
orientation="columns".

In addition, it's worth considering that tables are only one example of the
general problem of reading order being different from document order. Another
case is documents assembled from component parts (in some cases by automated
systems rather than by hand), such as appending the footer at the end of the
source file even though it may logically come at the beginning.

A common example of the latter is many news web sites where selecting an
article and its title also selects a sidebar because it immediately follows the
title in the source document, even though visually it appears to follow the
article, being displayed in a separate column on the right.

Because reading order not obvious to visual users who prefer mouse input, it
can be easily overlooked by content authors, and users might benefit from the
ability to to correct or compensate for these problems by altering
reading/navigation order through user style sheets or equivalent.

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Received on Monday, 16 January 2012 23:02:49 UTC