- From: Lee Roberts <leeroberts@roserockdesign.com>
- Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 11:20:33 -0500
- To: "'John M Slatin'" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu>, "'Roberto Scano - IWA/HWG'" <rscano@iwa-italy.org>, "'Matt May'" <mcmay@w3.org>, "'Chris Ridpath'" <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>
- Cc: "'WAI WCAG List'" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
I concur with John, we really need to prevent the accidental or indifference of missing summary attributes. Although, Roberto's position is valid in the view that machine validators like Bobby must adhere to the WCAG standards, we must keep in mind the limitations or extra burdens we place on software manufacturers. The more we can set up for machine validators to test, the easier it will be for designers to validate with an objective view. As discussed in our teleconference, and pointed out by Gregg I think, human validators must be highly reliable in order for visual inspections to work. This leads us to the objective view of machine testers like Bobby and the many others. We are not designing the standards to meet machine testers, we are only providing an easier way to ensure the tables are set up correctly. By requiring a null summary for layout tables and a content filled summary for data tables we can easily perform a visual and machine validation. By allowing the summary to be ignored only puts people into the habit of not providing a summary and then opening up the situation to accidentally not including a summary on data tables. There are more layout tables than there are data tables - habits form easily and are transferrable to all development processes. We need to prevent bad habits if at all possible. If the summary is null, then the test (machine or HIHR) could simply validate for no captions and no th elements. It's simply easy to do and IMHO makes perfect sense. Sincerely, Lee Roberts President/CEO Rose Rock Design, Inc. (405) 321-6372 http://www.roserockdesign.com -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of John M Slatin Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 8:23 AM To: Roberto Scano - IWA/HWG; Matt May; Chris Ridpath Cc: WAI WCAG List Subject: RE: Table Techniques - Summary Roberto makes a good point when he asks "Why use the [summary] attribute" if the resource contains no text describing the purpose or organization of the table? The primary reason is to confirm that the absence of explanatory text is deliberate rather than accidental. It occurs to me that the problem of identifying table types could be solved by providing a type attribute for the table element; legal values could be "layout" or "data." or An attribute called "layout" whose values could be either "yes" or "no," could also work. These would become part of the XHTML spec. John John Slatin, Ph.D. Director, Institute for Technology & Learning University of Texas at Austin FAC 248C 1 University Station G9600 Austin, TX 78712 ph 512-495-4288, f 512-495-4524 email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu web http://www.ital.utexas.edu -----Original Message----- From: Roberto Scano - IWA/HWG [mailto:rscano@iwa-italy.org] Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 3:56 pm To: John M Slatin; Matt May; Chris Ridpath Cc: WAI WCAG List Subject: Re: Table Techniques - Summary ----- Original Message ----- From: "John M Slatin" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu> To: "Matt May" <mcmay@w3.org>; "Chris Ridpath" <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca> Cc: "WAI WCAG List" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 9:43 PM Subject: RE: Table Techniques - Summary > > I agree that null summary (summary="") should be allowed for layout > tables. As Matt points out, this indicates a postive intention on the > author's part to force screen reader behavior, just as the null alt > attribute for images does. Use of the <th> element is *another* good > indicator of the author's intent, in this case to create a data table > rather than a layout table. > > By contrast, the absence of a summary attribute, like the absence of > an alt attribute, may simply indicate ignorance or indifference on the > author's part. I could understand and agree with John but the HTML reference [1] referring to "summary" explain that: "This attribute provides a summary of the table's purpose and structure for user agents rendering to non-visual media such as speech and Braille." "summary" is different from the ALT attribute [2] that must be specified for the IMG and AREA elements. So, if there is no text that presents the table's purpose and structure, why use the attribute? Roberto Scano --- [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#adef-summary [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/objects.html#adef-alt
Received on Friday, 15 August 2003 12:17:57 UTC