- From: Kelly Ford <kford@teleport.com>
- Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 08:58:32 -0800
- To: tvraman@us.ibm.com
- Cc: tvraman@explorer.almaden.ibm.com, "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <unagi69@concentric.net>, WAI Interest Group Emailing List <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>, User Agent Guidelines Emailing List <w3c-wai-ua@w3.org>
I'm not arguing against the points you or Gregory have made. However, it has been my personal experience that the majority of sites that use tables for layout are readable with a variety of browsing strategies used by people who are blind. I guess if I have to do a bit of moving up or down a line to figure context when I'm unfamiliar with a page I don't find that such a horrific thing. When combined with the reality that the vast vast majority of web sites use table commands for layout I think trying to change such behavior will be a losing battle from the start. I don't know of any method that is going to quickly tell me the context of a single word searched for on a web site. I mean I could bring up any page, type in a search term and find it. I'd still have to do a bit of exploring to discover the context of that word. At 08:47 AM 11/17/99 -0800, T. V. Raman wrote: >as an example of what I mean look at the following lines >extracted from your message: > >Children's >Audiobooks, >Music, >Science & Space... > > >Now, when you land on "audio books" >--how do you know that that's children's audio books >without feeling around the screen? > >For instance say you search for occurrences of "audio books" >on the page-- >you hit the string "audio books" >multiple times, >and each time you have to look both at the line above >(or possibly below) >to put it in context. > >This in itself does not sound too bad-- >but realize that the fact that the "children's" landed up in >the line immediately above "audio books" >was pure accident --and something that could change if the >Yahoo site >decided to change from being row-oriented to column-oriented >in their table design. >Equally, the proximity of "children's" to "audio books" >is a function of whether the screenreader decides to >decolumnize using row major or column major order. > > > > >>>>>> "Kelly" == Kelly Ford <kford@teleport.com> writes: > > Kelly> Hi, > >> Also, most layout-oriented sites only manage to turn into a > >> different form of gibberish when decolumnized in this way >>the issue gets especially bad with nested tables where the >>decolumnizing gets even more ad-hock. >> >>As an example, try >>the various yahoo sites e.g. broadcast, loans etc. >> > > Kelly> Could you provide some clarification on what you > Kelly> mean here. Below is part of the text as > Kelly> decolumnized by both JFW with Internet Explorer > Kelly> and Lynx. Of course missing here are the numbers > Kelly> Lynx could insert or the word Link before each > Kelly> line below but basically each line below is a > Kelly> link. > > Kelly> My impression of this page, like much of the main > Kelly> Yahoo Index, is that you have a basic category > Kelly> name and then some subcategories under that > Kelly> category. The pattern is terminated with a link > Kelly> that has several periods, which is an indication > Kelly> that the next link will be a major category. To > Kelly> me this is very readable and functional. > > Kelly> The other sections of the page are links to live > Kelly> events today and are equally readable to me. > > Kelly> I'm not saying readable to Kelly equals > Kelly> accessible. But of the hundreds of people who > Kelly> are Blind I've worked with on internet access, > Kelly> Yahoo has been a favorite site because people > Kelly> find it functional. ***Begin cut from > Kelly> http://broadcast.yahoo.com*** AudioBooks Author > Kelly> Interviews, New Releases... CD Jukebox Listening > Kelly> Parties... Video Educational, Movies, TV > Kelly> Series... Radio Local, Shows... TV Local, > Kelly> Networks, News, Weather... Broadband Movies, > Kelly> Music, TV Shows... > > Kelly> Business Events, Industries, Investing, > Kelly> Leadership... Careers & Employment jobs.com, > Kelly> Resumes... Children's Audiobooks, Music, Science > Kelly> & Space... > >-- >Best Regards, >--raman >------------------------------------------------------------ > >IBM Research: Human Language Technologies >Phone: 1 (408) 927 2608 >Email: tvraman@us.ibm.com >WWW: http://cs.cornell.edu/home/raman >PGP: http://cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/raman.asc >Snail: IBM Almaden Research Center, > 650 Harry Road > San Jose 95120 > >
Received on Wednesday, 17 November 1999 11:58:27 UTC