RE: A table navigation technique

The problem that I have is that it should not be a priority 1 item -- in
that without this feature, a user agent would be inaccessible.  From your
comment, "I believe many blind people would **prefer**..." and "blind users
would not **like** that functionality...", you are in fact making the case
that this feature should not be priority 1.  Words like prefer and like are
used for pri-2 or pri-3 items.

Lets also keep in mind that table serialization is a special case feature...
one that is not desired after by mainstream users and one that 3rd party
assistive technologies make money off of in their unique implementation --
table navigation along with a lot of the items on the guidelines are selling
features for access technologies... I'd hate to be taking such features away
from them.

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Luebking [mailto:phoenixl@netcom.com]
Sent: Monday, November 16, 1998 1:59 PM
To: Charles (Chuck) Oppermann; Kathy Hewitt; phoenixl@netcom.com;
w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
Subject: RE: A table navigation technique


Hi,
I'm not clear that we will accomplish very much talking about the
history of Active Accessibility.  The question is whether visual
browsers should provide direct serialized rendering of tables as a
priority one.  As I mentioned before, I believe many blind people would
prefer that visual browsers would make their lives simpler by providing
this type of table rendering.  Do you believe that blind users would not
like that functionality directly available from browsers?  If I recall
correctly, in one of the conference calls, the view seem to be that
accessibility should be built directly into the browser when possible.
In addition, hooks/API should be provided for the access technology to
get information in order to build specialized access technology or for
further enhancements.

Scott

> The burden doesn't solely fall on the ISVs.  Did you think Active
> Accessibility developed itself?
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Luebking [mailto:phoenixl@netcom.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 16, 1998 12:48 PM
> To: Charles (Chuck) Oppermann; Kathy Hewitt; phoenixl@netcom.com;
> w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
> Subject: RE: A table navigation technique
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Why should the burden fall on the shoulders of the access technology
> developers?  My impression is that some of them feel forced to do it
> because browsers aren't providing the information in a directly
> accessible format.  Have you heard many access technology developers
> insist that they want to expend their resources on developing table
> access?
> 
> Scott
> 
> PS  I wasn't aware of Active Accessibility running on UNIX or Mac's.
> 
> > 
> > I agree with Kathy - some folks should try working with the technology
> > available.  For over a year now, WinVision 97 has made tables highly
> > accessible through Active Accessibility.  They even have a bunch of
tables
> > in their web site to prove their point.  JFW uses a technique to
> manipulate
> > the document to unroll the table horizonatally.
> > 
> > Tell me why this absolutely must be in the browser code.
> 
>

Received on Monday, 16 November 1998 17:22:55 UTC