Re: language level vs. accessibility

> DD::
> 
> >I reject this kind of guideline and the basis that I think we should
> >only deal with access to the information, not with information
> >semantics.
> 
> AG::
> 
> There is a problem with this line of reasoning.  We have violated this
> principle for TABLEs already, and for good reason.  

I don't think this is the same kind of semantics we're dealing with in 
the TABLE or FRAME situation.

By not providing a mean to associate table cell with table header, for
instance, a tool is removing information (the association) that's
otherwise available to a visual reader.

The fact that's the header is the word "grok" - which I don't
personally understand - is a different level of issues: in my case,
it's because I'm french, but it could be that it's not in my
vocabulary because I grew up in the bostonian high society, and this
is a slang or too casual word my parents never used.

Anyway, I doubt you or anyone can flag the word "grok" a priori (and
just this one, I understand all the others) and make it a pointer to
its webster definition, but it's clear you can tell in advance that as
a non-visual reader of some multi-dimensional table, I will need some
relationship between cell and header.

> The question of what table or frameset is too complex is something we have 
> not yet reduced to technology.  

Actually, we have, or the HTML4 spec has for TABLE, and for Frame, we
could very well do it. It would be a moving target depending on the UA
of a time, but that's quite possible.

> On the other hand, reading level is already
> checkable by widely-available commercial means.

Reading level is just one aspect, I'm using simple words in this
message (they're the only ones I know :-) but I doubt anyone out of
this list would make sense of them: no context, no background, no
expertise, etc.

Received on Wednesday, 13 January 1999 09:28:22 UTC