Re: The trouble with data tables!

My instinct would be to break up the large table into a series of 
smaller tables, each with its own heading

<h2>Chicken Dishes</h2>

<table>
....
</table>

That way you have a series of simple tables which require less 
tweaking for accessibiliy purposes.

Making the food types headers, also allows screen reader users to 
navigate from heading to heading. When you read a menu in a 
restaurant, you would probably do scan for the appropriate, then look 
at items in detail after finding the section you want.

I believe the same reasoning might apply to assets as well.

My two cents

Elizabeth



>Hi, folks
>
>If anyone has a moment, I'd be grateful for some thoughts on the markup of
>three data tables.
>
>What we have is three menus on different html pages, with links between them
>at the top. The content is identical, but we've used different html markup
>for each.
>
>Eventually the lessons we learned will be applied to financial data tables
>where they will state a category such as assets, then the individual assets
>so there will be two levels of heading.  In this case we've said Chicken or
>Lamb and given three dishes under each. We hope our markup will leave no
>doubt which dish is in which major heading category and help people keep
>track of which row you are in. This will become particularly important when
>we apply the lessons to columns of very boring figure.
>
>The url for the first menu is
>
>http://www.accease.com/testcorner/Mockmenu.html
>
>
>Many thanks
>
>
>Judy Knighton
>
>
>
>AccEase Ltd
>Making online information accessible
>PO Box 40 670, Upper Hutt
>Ph +64 4 528 0888
>Fax +64 4 528 0889
>Mob 021 375 321
>informed@accease.com
>www.accease.com


-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Instructional Designer
Education Technology Services, TLT/ITS
Penn State University
ejp10@psu.edu, (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office)

210 Rider Building II
227 W. Beaver Avenue
State College, PA   16801-4819
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Received on Friday, 17 June 2005 13:11:14 UTC