RE: A table navigation technique

Hi, Chuck

I believe that you're correct that blind users want solutions.  The
question is who defines what the solution is.  The one you're talking.
i.e. exposing information, is one solution.  However, is it the
one blind browser users want for table accessibility?  On a conference call,
the committee talked about a desirable solution being a combination of
direct accessibility when appropriate along with information being exposed.
My impression is that many blind people would like as much direct
accessibility as possible.  Is your impression different?

<<  For stylistic things like font type and color, it makes sense for the
browser for the browser to control it.  For structural elements, such as a
completely different way of rendering tables, I submit that it's not the
browsers responsibility.  >>

Why shouldn't it be the responsibility of browsers to offer an accessible way
to render tables?

My impression was that the guidelines were being written for browser
developers to understand what accessibility is wanted and needed by
disabled browser users.  The question is not so much as to whether
Microsoft has done enough as whether it has done what blind users want.
I come from a view that it is the users who determine user satisfaction
rather than the developers.  (When I talk about customer satisfaction, I
use a story of an incident I saw in a restaurant in Berkeley one time.
A couple was eating and the young woman told the waiter she would like to
have some desert.  The young man says that she couldn't be hungry, he
just bought her a $20 dinner.)

So far, only Microsoft has expressed any objection to table serialization
being a priority 1 item.  Are there any other objections?

Scott


> <<
> Actually, that would be limiting for blind users to "top screen readers".
> I do not believe that the guidelines should in any force blind users
> in that direction.  Do you believe blind users want that?
> >>
> 
> I believe that blind users want solutions.  The browser isn't the solution.
> There are some thing the browser does and something's the accessibility aid
> does.  At some point you have to say - "We expose information - now others
> have to use that information to re-render the content in a different
> structure"
> 
> For stylistic things like font type and color, it makes sense for the
> browser for the browser to control it.  For structural elements, such as a
> completely different way of rendering tables, I submit that it's not the
> browsers responsibility.
> 
> Scott, has any other browser stepped up to do this?  Will Netscape and Opera
> do this?  For that matter, do either of those browsers expose the structure
> of the table in both a accessibility-generic and HTML-specific fashion?
> 
> I think Microsoft has done plenty to make tables and the HTML content
> accessible.  We're not in the business of providing Nth degree of rendering
> options for structure mark up.
> 
> Does anyone else on the list share Scott's view that unrolling of tables
> should be a Priority 1 item?

Received on Monday, 16 November 1998 22:46:00 UTC