- From: Jon Gunderson <jongund@staff.uiuc.edu>
- Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 09:11:36 -0500
- To: Charles McCathieNevile <charlesn@sunrise.srl.rmit.edu.au>, WAI GL <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
I think tables for page layout are going to be with us for a long time. One of the main reasons is backward compatibility with non-CSS browsers. Also almost every book published on HTML design talks about using tables for layout. It would be ideal to get rid of tables for spatial layout, but I think it is a difficult , if not impossible task given the momentum for the use of tables. I would like to see some type of markup of tables that can be used by User Agents for rendering table information in a form that is compatible with needs of persons with disabilities. So if a table is being used to provide column formating, if had the appropriate markup to indicate that is what it is doing the user agent could create a non-column rendering of the table. If the table was data and information is available about the table relationships a linear rendering of the table and additional UA controls could be used for navigating the information in the table. Jon At 10:36 AM 7/23/98 +1000, Charles McCathieNevile wrote: >Labelling tables for their purpose: >Tables for presentation of tabular information need no label. > >Tables for columnar layout need to be excised from the web, until such >time as screen readers which cannot understand them are no longer used. > >just my 2c > >Charles > Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign 1207 S. Oak Street Champaign, IL 61820 Voice: 217-244-5870 Fax: 217-333-0248 E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess
Received on Thursday, 23 July 1998 10:12:00 UTC