Re: will get back to you Re: headers attribute debate

Preston L. Bannister wrote:
> On 5/28/07, *Al Gilman* <Alfred.S.Gilman@ieee.org 
> <mailto:Alfred.S.Gilman@ieee.org>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     At 6:06 PM -0500 27 05 2007, Laura Carlson wrote:
>      >
>      >Advice from WAI and the PFWG on the potential accessibility impact of
>      >the absence of the headers attribute for HTML 5 would be appreciated.
> 
>     Thank you for this question.
> 
>     Tables have historically been a source of access problems.  We put
>     some features in HTML4 and there is now enough time past to take
>     a fresh look.
> 
> 
> As you say, enough time has gone by - it would be useful to see a brief 
> write up of "lessons-learned" from those folk involved in 
> accessibility.  What works well? What turned out of little value? Where 
> is the greatest gap felt between what we have and what is needed for 
> accessibility?
> 
> Or does such a missive already exist?

With regards to "what works well", headers seem to be the ones best 
supported in current screen readers.

http://www.usability.com.au/resources/tables.cfm

(hence the feeling of some accessibility folks that not having those 
attributes included in the current HTML 5 spec was a bit...premature)

Greatest gap probably is complexity for authors, which authoring tools 
haven't really made much of an attempt at bridging (almost sounds like a 
case for ATAG, I'd say).

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke
______________________________________________________________
re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
http://redux.deviantart.com
______________________________________________________________
Co-lead, Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
______________________________________________________________
Take it to the streets ... join the WaSP Street Team
http://streetteam.webstandards.org/
______________________________________________________________

Received on Monday, 28 May 2007 19:00:14 UTC