Re: Is CAPTION always necessary?

On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 08:52:13AM -0400, RUST Randal wrote:

> >   not using it ? Throw in a caption. It's not like it's doing 
> > any harm.
> 
> Because I don't want to have the page title as 'Users' and then the
> table caption as 'Users.' Plus it's there in the summary. It's redundant
> whether you're looking at the table or having it read to you. In my

   It is redundant IF (a) you keep the first header on the page as the
  same as the table and not as something that perhaps better describes
  what the section is about, (b) the CAPTION is read or used when the
  SUMMARY is read or used.

   (a) is up to you. (b) ... well. To be quite honest it would make for
  a rather weird piece of technology which doesn't tell the difference
  between a caption and a summary.



> mind, it does harm. I feel like it's insulting someone's intelligence to
> say, "It's a table of users." basically three times.

   It would be, yes. But that's not what you are saying: a *summary* of
  the content is hardly the same as the *caption* of a table, or a
  *header* of a section.

   You're not saying the same thing. It might LOOK that way, but it 
  isn't. Three different structures which, at this particular spot, happen
  to have very similar content.


> My question is really about whether or not it causes an accessibility
> issue by not including the <caption>. I can't see how it would.

   It isn't all that hard to imagine a browser that supplies a user
  with the caption, but doesn't know about the summary. They are, after
  all, not the same.

-- 
 - Tina H.

Received on Friday, 30 May 2003 09:23:39 UTC