- From: Jim Thatcher <jim@jimthatcher.com>
- Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2003 19:17:08 -0600
- To: "'Charles McCathieNevile'" <charles@sidar.org>
- Cc: "'Matt May'" <mcmay@w3.org>, "'Jesper Tverskov'" <jesper.tverskov@mail.tele.dk>, w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
But Chaals, there is no reason for a person to even try to have a mental model of the layout tables. They should be ignored by user and browser alike. Layout tables do not have to be constructed so that they make sense, only that the content makes sense when linearized. Yes, we're talking layout tables, not data tables. I have never seen a nested data table (that made sense). Jim 508 Web Accessibility Tutorial http://jimthatcher.com/webcourse1.htm. "Constructing Accessible Web Sites:" http://jimthatcher.com/news.htm -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 6:46 PM To: jim@jimthatcher.com Cc: 'Matt May'; 'Jesper Tverskov'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org Subject: Re: Why are nested tables that bad On Tuesday, Jan 14, 2003, at 11:29 Australia/Melbourne, Jim Thatcher wrote: > By far the most important thing for this discussion is that nesting of > layout tables has NO effect, per se, on accessibility. One has to check > that the content linearizes correctly whether nested or not, but I > would > bet nesting rarely causes a problem. There are a couple of buggy browsers that don't handle deeply nested tables, but in general tables can be linearised even if nested. There are also systems that allow users to navigate tables properly, rather than losing the structure of them. So your tables need to be constructed to make sense - this is more important with data tables that have real structure than with layout tables where shuffling the pieces won't have much overall impact on understanding the site. The effect is one of complicating the navigation, by requiring the user to hold a mental model that includes several layers of nesting as they navigate from item to item. This is worse if they have to change mental models for each page. Except in extreme cases it is only moderately annoying or imperceptible for most users. Chaals -- Charles McCathieNevile charles@sidar.org Fundación SIDAR http://www.sidar.org
Received on Monday, 13 January 2003 20:18:17 UTC