Re: Issues of @summary and use of data for "decisions"

On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 6:55 PM, Simon Pieters<simonp@opera.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:35:17 +0200, Shelley Powers <shelley.just@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> If this is the case, then it seems to me that the user agent does not
>>> need
>>> to be able to distinguish between caption and summary, and thus <caption>
>>> can be used for both purposes.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Simon Pieters
>>> Opera Software
>>>
>>
>> Simon, are you being deliberately obtuse?
>
> No, not deliberately. :-)
>
>
>> He is talking about what happens with screenreaders. The summary is
>> targeted at screenreaders.
>>
>> What is the difference in behavior when someone like me, who is
>> sighted, looks at the table using Opera? I see the caption, I don't
>> see summary.
>>
>> Therefore one field cannot be used for both.
>
> It has been argued that summaries would likely be more useful on avarage if
> they were visible by default. It has also been argued that some summaries
> are useful also to visual users. These are two reasons why HTML5 proposes to
> put the summary in <caption>, AIUI.
>
> --
> Simon Pieters
> Opera Software
>


Simon, you've also heard arguments here, from more than one person
(John, Stephan, Laura) that summaries are more useful not being
visible.

Can we agree that these people's opinions are just as valuable as
those who belief otherwise?

But where there is a difference is that if one believes the
information is useful for everyone, one can use caption. There is
nothing in having both that precludes putting whatever information is
deemed useful in caption. This is the most general use.

But collapsing caption into summary is the more restrictive case,
giving no real option for those who don't want the data to be
available, except for some CSS trickery. And even that won't work
today.

So let's eliminate the working, general solution, in favor of the more
restrictive, non-working solution?

Shelley

Shelley

Received on Wednesday, 24 June 2009 00:11:10 UTC