Re: PF Response: @Summary

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Janina Sajka<janina@rednote.net> wrote:
> Henri Sivonen writes:
>> On Jul 6, 2009, at 20:50, Joshue O Connor wrote:

>>> [Considering Gez Lemon's example, available at
>>>  http://juicystudio.com/wcag/tables/complexdatatable.html ]


>>> For a suitable @summary overview you could say something like:
>>>
>>> <table summary="A complex table of two halves.
>>>  Firstly, there are 7 columns with the headings
>>>  Child Investment, Type, Status, Allocation,
>>>  Total Cost of Ownership, Return on Investment,
>>>  Net Present Value, with their corresponding
>>> values in rows beneath them. The table is then
>>> followed by a column called Property that has
>>> two sections of sub-headings of Budgeted,
>>> Actual and Forecasted with their corresponding
>>> running cost values for three weekly periods
>>> starting from the 12th of December 2005 to the
>>> 26th">.

>> I observe that the actual summary looks like this:

>>> <table summary="Child investment portfolios
>>>  with budgeted, actual and forecast running
>>>  costs for particular dates">

>> It's much shorter, and it's caption-like.

> Please notice that your "caption" text says nothing
> about how the data is structured. That's important,
> very important. Josh's summary has
> that information. Your caption does not.

I think most people agree that the structural information shouldn't be
in the summary, but may be useful to some people.

The questions are:

(1)  Can the browser determine this structural information automatically?

(2)  Can the browser do it well enough that summaries should always be
automated, so as to benefit from standardization?

I'm not sure exactly what structural information is needed, but if
some *is* needed here, then it looks like an automated (User Agent)
process could often do better than even an expert (Author) does in
practice -- and so maybe the UA guidelines are what should be
specified.

-jJ

Received on Tuesday, 7 July 2009 18:12:55 UTC