RE: WCAG-ISSUE-23 (DavidMacD): We should consider a new "Failure to provide role=presentation on a layout table"

Alastair Campbell wrote:

“Given that you have to include a lot of mark-up to do table layouts in the first place, I don’t think an extra 21 characters (quoted) is unreasonable, and it makes the meaning explicit.”

 

It’s also a lighter cognitive load for the developer. Remembering to put role=”presentation” on a layout table is easier than trying to recall which heuristics apply to which table dimensions.

 

Léonie

--

Léonie Watson - Senior accessibility engineer

@LeonieWatson @PacielloGroup

 

From: Alastair Campbell [mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com] 
Sent: 02 June 2014 09:46
To: Steve Faulkner; Wilco Fiers
Cc: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
Subject: RE: WCAG-ISSUE-23 (DavidMacD): We should consider a new "Failure to provide role=presentation on a layout table"

 

Adding the role certainly helps make it “programmatically determined” as part of 1.3.1. 

 

I’ve found the heuristics fallible as well, they tend to work for simple test cases but not for more complex layouts with (for example) nested tables.

 

Generally I come across layout tables on old, internal and/or enterprise systems. If I come across a layout table with role=”presentation” it basically means the developer knows about accessibility but really can’t update the system to use CSS layouts. 

 

Given that you have to include a lot of mark-up to do table layouts in the first place, I don’t think an extra 21 characters (quoted) is unreasonable, and it makes the meaning explicit.

 

-Alastair