Re: Table Techniques - Summary

On Wednesday, August 6, 2003, at 12:42  PM, Chris Ridpath wrote:
> In our techniques call today we reached a resolution for layout table
> summaries:
> Layout tables must not have a summary (not even a NULL summary). This
> reverses our earlier decision that layout tables may have a summary.

I disagree with this proposal.

A null summary is more indicative of an author having decided that a 
table is a layout table. It is the only way people have agreed on to 
date that we can point out layout tables in code.

> - it appears that layout tables will be deprecated in XHTML2

I'm doubtful here. Given that there is no means of semantically marking 
up a table as a layout table (which is why we're in this mess in the 
first place), deprecating its use as such is, shall we say, quixotic, 
since all they can specify is an element's presence, not its abstract 
use case.

> - we should not require a NULL summary just to make the author "jump 
> through
> hoops"

That's the compromise we were, until now, willing to make.

In testing pages for accessibility, I would not consider either 
summary="" or no summary to be a fail. Rather, I would consider 
summary="" to be a pass, and no summary to be a case for triggering 
user checking (in EARL 1.0, a "cannotTell"). Given that less user 
checking equals better for most authors, I would indicate the former as 
a success case in the techniques document (and thus indicate the same 
to the E&R tool vendors), but I would accept the latter, with author 
verification.

-
m

Received on Thursday, 7 August 2003 17:49:13 UTC