RE: Complex table with headings (h3, h4 etc.) to group data rows

Sailesh,
My issue with this is that there is nothing in the spec that says that headings (e.g. h2) should be used in this way, and the user agent support for identifying table cells isn't there yet.  When I use JAWS on your table and jump to the last cell or move to an arbitrary cell in the table and request the header information to establish the context it only reads headers that are defined with the standard table markup.  A user wouldn't know when or if there were headings marked up in this alternative way, so to be certain a user would need to hit JAWS+T every time they thought that there might be an additional heading defined in this non-standard way.  I don't see this as very workable for end users, even if it has the potential to save some developer time.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems 

akirkpat@adobe.com
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility


-----Original Message-----
From: Sailesh Panchang [mailto:spanchang02@yahoo.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2013 1:08 PM
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: Complex table with headings (h3, h4 etc.) to group data rows

Refer to table#2 on this page:
http://mars.dequecloud.com/demo/Census_2013.htm

Well if one is arrowing down a column # 2or subsequent column, the screen reader does announce the group header because it is a TH cell./ (this is in response to Josh's question during the call).
Use of h<n> tags in a data table is valid code, it exposes structure of the grouping within the table, allows users to jump to the section of interest and then navigate the table and have only row header  to its left and column headers announced. This reduces verbosity. Yet one can press JAWS+T and have nearest heading announced ... a technique that is accepted for determining context of a link. So one can use the same technique to understand  context in terms of group headers. (Only JAWS  supports H80) Also one navigates a page and determines structure by multiple methods: landmarks, headings, tables, lists, forms etc. and not just heading navigation. So if this method is used to code complex tables, users will be able to figure that out. 
Also a single level of headings (styled as needed)  should be used in the table ... the method may not be appropriate if one needs to use more than one level of headings.  
It is a non "standard" method that is valid code and AT supported. 
I believe it is an alternative technique to headers-id when one chooses not to use headers-id for whatever reason.
 
Thanks and regards,
Sailesh Panchang

Received on Tuesday, 8 October 2013 18:08:23 UTC