Re: HTML5 alternatives to table summary don't work in current browsers, and Screen Readers

On Fri, 21 Jun 2013 17:05:17 +0200, David MacDonald  
<david100@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Hi Richard

> A small correction to your take on what I said in my post. I actually did
> not make a recommendation to return to table Summary. I am simply
> documenting that as we enter into recommendation status, the advice we  
> are providing to web authors fails WCAGs conformance requirement of
> accessibility support. And the example techniques listed currently don't
> help blind folks... even though web authors trust us to give them useful
> advice.
>
> There are certainly well documented disadvantages (and advantages) to the
> Summary attribute but until AT catches up on replacements, and they have  
> had several years to do so, we are looking at another of those awful  
> gaps that work on paper but not in the real world for blind folks.
>
> From: Richard Schwerdtfeger [mailto:schwer@us.ibm.com]
[...]
>> Let's stick with a consistent set of APIs (ARIA) that developers can go  
>> to as much as possible for one stop shopping.
>
>> I have alerted Freedom Scientific of the defect and they will fix it.

Do you have some timeline for that?

>> I have copied Mick Curran at NVDA and hopefully they will also correct
>> the problem with IE and Firefox.

In my experience the NVDA guys generally do a good job.

[...]
>> We can't be writing specs. based on proprietary assistive technology
>> defects.

Actually, part of the HTML5 revolution was that instead of writing things  
that ought to work, we should be relying on what *does*.

The "proprietary technology" whose defects could derail us are the  
fundamental products people are relying on. In the absence of viable  
alternatives, and without fixing those products, we're not ready to claim  
that we have produced a spec that is actually useful to anybody.

That may only be a temporary setback, but the lesson of the past is that  
temporary might last a generation (or their opportunity to get a useful  
education). We should be careful about charging ahead and saying stuff  
works, even while we don't want to try and stop real progress.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - Consultant (web standards) CTO Office, Yandex
       chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Friday, 21 June 2013 21:30:31 UTC