[techs] Definitions of complex data tables

In last week's Techniques call [1] we were talking about some
characteristics we wanted to require for data tables. For some of those
characteristics, it seemed that we might only want to require them for
complex data tables, but not for simple data tables. Possible parts of a
definition are:

* Complex tables have more than one row of headers, or more than one column
of headers, or both.

* Complex tables have cells for which header cells are not in the same row
or same column as the cell.

* The HTML 4.01 specification provides some hints as well. [2]

These are just thrown out for ideas. We'd like to hear from members of the
list: how would you (or would you) define a data table as simple or complex?

By the way, I'm not talking about the features we were thinking of applying
only to complex data tables because I don't want to create a tangent about
that. We'll open that discussion once we have some agreement about
differentiating these tables.

Michael

[1] http://www.w3.org/2004/05/19-wai-wcag-irc
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#non-visual-rendering

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Michael Cooper
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Received on Wednesday, 26 May 2004 15:54:25 UTC