RE: ACTION-23 - WCAG response to request to modify intent for 1.3.1 Info and Relationships

Ugh.
I can live with this.
seems that the tables are lost in the surrounding additional examples.  For our purposes, e.g. we need to clearly denote that tables need to be programatically determinable, this is marginally acceptable.



From: Andi Snow-Weaver [mailto:andisnow@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2012 3:25 PM
To: public-wcag2ict-tf@w3.org
Subject: ACTION-23 - WCAG response to request to modify intent for 1.3.1 Info and Relationships


Last week the WCAG working group reviewed our request to modify the intent for 1.3.1 as follows:
Replace the current last paragraph which reads:

There may also be cases where it may be a judgment call about what information should appear in text and what would need to be directly associated. However, wherever possible it is necessary for the information to be programmatically determined rather than providing a text description before encountering the table.

With the following paragraphs  ( a new one plus the paragraph above slightly edited)

Structure and relationships are often visually perceivable. For instance, when information is presented in tabular form the visual structure and relationship of one cell to another, the structure and relationship of one cell to all the cells sharing the same row or column, and the relationship of one cell to the row and/or column header are necessary for understanding information in a table. Having this structure and these relationships programmatically determined or available in text ensures that information important for comprehension will be perceivable to all.

There may also be cases where it may be a judgment call as to whether the relationships should be programmatically determined or be presented in text. However, when technologies support programmatic relationships, it is strongly encouraged that information and relationships be programmatically determined rather than described in text.

Per the survey results and the group discussion, the working group feels that the first paragraph is repetitive of what is already in the second paragraph. Instead of adding our first proposed paragraph, they agreed to this resolution:
RESOLUTION: 2nd paragraph gets replaced with “Sighted users perceive structure through various visual cues — headings are often in a larger, bold font separated from paragraphs by blank lines; list items are preceded by a bullet and perhaps indented; paragraphs are separated by a blank line; items that share a common characteristic are organized into tabular rows and columns with their headers; form fields may be positioned as groups that share text labels; a different background color may be used to indicate that several items are related to each other; words that have special status are indicated by changing the font family and /or bolding, italicizing, or underlining them and so on. HAVING THIS STRUCTURE AND THESE RELATIONSHIPS PROGRAMMATICALLY DETERMINED OR AVAILABLE IN TEXT ENSURES THAT INFORMATION IMPORTANT FOR COMPREHENSION WILL BE PERCEIVABLE TO ALL.
With regard to the second paragraph of our proposal, they agreed to this resolution:
RESOLUTION: replace the seventh paragraph with "There may also be cases where it may be a judgment call as to whether the relationships should be programmatically determined or be presented in text. However, when technologies support programmatic relationships, it is strongly encouraged that information and relationships be programmatically determined rather than described in text.
If there are no objections, with these WCAG resolutions, we can close ACTION-23 tomorrow.

Andi