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

[David wrote] We would have to throw out a lot of failures using the logic
that "sometimes AT gets it right despite questionable authoring."

Your example of layout tables and images is not the same.  Layout tables
have no data table elements.  Data tables have to have data table
elements.  That would be more akin to saying that decorative images didn’t
need an alt.  That does raise an interesting question.



We already have F46: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 due to using th
elements, caption elements, or non-empty summary attributes in layout
tables – thus there is a clear distinction between a compliant layout table
and a data table.   Why do we need to require role of presentation if a
compliant layout table already has to have no data table markup?  It might
be that we are concerned that AT might render information about the table
to the user or leave the structure in the API tree.  Are these barriers to
access? not in my opinion.  Do they represent the page layout? Yes.  If we
suddenly said that layout tables now have to have role of presentation how
many millions of pages would now suddenly fail WCAG 2?   What would be the
benefit to the user, a little less verbiage about a table from a screen
reader – that’s it.  I agree with Ramon that IMO we can’t make this a
failure.



This is actually similar to developers adding list structure to links.
Many people in our community add unordered list markup to each link in a
group even though most links aren’t depicted in a list and don’t represent
a list – and this is seen as a best practice.  It adds extra speech to
screen reader users and provides little benefit other than telling you the
number of items.  We have other markup structures such as nav that can be
used but people even including extra list structure in nav elements.



Jonathan



*From:* David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca]
*Sent:* Monday, June 02, 2014 7:23 AM
*To:* rcorominas@technosite.es
*Cc:* Alastair Campbell; faulkner.steve@gmail.com; Wilco Fiers; 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"



Perhaps we are exploring the nature of what WCAg means when we say "common
failures". There may be a certain amount of fluidity of understanding among
current and past group members. Such as what a failure means, really.

I'm not sure that I agree that WCAG should only define failures for
circumstances that universally never work on any assistive technology. I
suggest that almost every WCAG failure would have to be eliminated if we
were to use that litmus test. For instance, when JAWS sees nothing in the
ACCNAME of the API for an image, it uses heuristics as it attempts to read
the file name of an image that has no alternate text. Perhaps the file name
is sufficiently explanatory <img scr="fluffythedog.jpg">. We would have to
throw out a lot of failures using the logic that "sometimes AT gets it
right despite questionable authoring."

Failures I don't think should be dependent upon these types of desperate
attempts by AT to help their users.


Cheers,

David MacDonald



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On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:50 AM, Ramón Corominas <rcorominas@technosite.es>
wrote:

I am not saying that it is consistent or that we should rely on heuristics,
what I'm saying is that it is not always failing and that a WCAG failure
would mean "you have to change this". Let's imagine a closed environment
with a web app where the layout tables are supported, even if they have no
role="presentation". Will be mandatory to find and change all the offending
tables (distinguishing them from other possible data tables) just to solve
a no-problem?

Cheers,
Ramón.



Alastair wrote:

Ramón Corominas wrote: "Thus, I would say that -at least in this case- the
layout table is a way of using technology that is "accessibility
supported", that is, it "has been tested for interoperability with users'
assistive technology". Maybe it is ugly, but it is supported."

Well, last time I came across this as an issue (on an intranet) there were
no table headings, summary, or anything to mark the tables as data.
However, NVDA and VoiceOver both announced the table cells.
That is the point though - it is not consistent unless you specify it. I
don't think relying on AT heuristics is good enough.