RE: Sortable table

One thing Heydon does not cover is getting rid of all the extr chatter related to putting sort controls in a column header. When you use a screen reader to read a cross a row in a table that has column headers, you typically hear the header and then the cell content. Thus, it is super annoying to have long header names.

 

If you have a header that is something like <th>Last Name<button>sort by last name descending</button></th>, reading across rows becomes very tedious.

 

This is easy to fix with the `abbr` attribute:

 

<th abbr=”Last Name”>Last Name<button>sort by last name descending</button></th>

Screen readers will then typically use the value of the `abbr` attribute when reading cells of the table.

 

Best,

Matt

 

From: Marc Haunschild <haunschild@mhis.onmicrosoft.de> 
Sent: Friday, October 4, 2019 3:12 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Sortable table

 

Hi Angela, 

 

Heydon Pickering has written a lot about inclusive table design on his site inclusive design components.

 

Also about sorting data tables and making them responsive.

 

https://inclusive-components.design/data-tables/

--

Mit freundlichen Grüßen 

 

Marc Haunschild

www.mhis.de <http://www.mhis.de> 





Am 03.10.2019 um 21:42 schrieb Davis, Angela (ITS) <Angela.Davis@its.ny.gov <mailto:Angela.Davis@its.ny.gov> >:

 

Hello,

 

I’m currently auditing a sortable table. When a user clicks a button to sort the table where should the focus end up? 

 

On the search results heading?

 

For example:  Your search returned 39 results. Now displaying records 1 to 20. Skip to Building Search Results 

 

or the heading that tells you how the results are now sorted? 

 

For example: Building Search Results  (Sorted by Building Number : Ascending)

 

Thanks,

 

Angela 

 

Angela Savage

Information Technology Specialist 2

NYS Office of Information Technology Services

Citizen Services Cluster | Application Systems Engineering