- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:21:38 +0000 (UTC)
- To: Al Gilman <Alfred.S.Gilman@IEEE.org>
- Cc: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>, W3C WAI-XTECH <wai-xtech@w3.org>
On Wed, 6 Aug 2008, Al Gilman wrote: > On 23 Jul 2008, at 7:27 PM, Chris Wilson wrote: > > > Any update on this request from the PF group? > > Here is a summary of how PFWG sees the situation as regards @summary on > <table> in HTML: > > 1. @summary should stay > 2. It provides a needed service > 3. element content providing this info, *if linked by markup to the table* > offers growth to even better practice > 4. Don't have the linking markup yet; is a developmental item > 5. evolution not revolution says: keep @summary at least until alternatives > are deployed and stable > > There are lots of details to be worked out, and we would like to > continue discussing those with you. But the above summarizes how we see > and approach the matter. Thank you for the update. Do you have any references to the research that indicates that summary="" is more useful than harmful when users actually interact with it? So far, I have seen a number of anecdotal assertions of its usefulness, but the only actual usability study I have seen (courtesey of Joshue, who cannot be thanked enough for his help here) showed a user dismiss the summary="" information as uniformally useless for his needs (though again, the user said that anecdotally, it could be useful for less advanced users). I am hesitant to include a feature like summary="" when all evidence seems to point to it being widely misused by authors and ignored by the users it intends to help. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Thursday, 21 August 2008 09:22:00 UTC