Re: Table accessibility (was Re: headers attribute)

fyi...

> User Agent Working Group comments:
>
> The 'headers' attribute is supported by the major screen readers used
> in the world (JAWS, WindowEyes, ??HAL/SuperNova-still waiting for a
> reply). WindowEyes uses the headers and id attribute combination.
> WindowEyes does *not* use the scope attribute. JAWS has support for
> headers/id, row and column span, and the 'axis' attribute.
>
> Assistive technologies, browser extensions, and tools that use DOM
> access also support the headers attribute and expose that information
> through their accessibility APIs and to their end users with
> disabilities and to developers. Examples of this include Firefox
> extensions like FireVox and the University of Illinois Firefox
> accessibility extension, and developer tools like Parasoft's WebKing
> and IBM's RAVEN tool
> (http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/raven).
>
> In addition, platform accessibility APIs such as IAccessible2 on
> Windows, ATK/AT-SPI on Linux, and the Java accessibility API all have
> functions for getting the row and column headers. The headers
> attribute, scope attribute, and TH all provided explicit, engineered
> ways for browsers to get row and column headers and expose that
> information to assistive technologies through the accessibility APIs.
> Without these, the browsers and assistive technologies are forced to
> resort to heuristics such as font styling and location (topmost and
> leftmost cells), which is insufficient for complex tables with
> spanned and multiple row/column headers.
>
> Jim Allan, Chair UAWG
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2007Jun/0021.html

Laura

Received on Wednesday, 6 June 2007 17:12:11 UTC