- From: Denis Anson <danson@miseri.edu>
- Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 11:10:34 -0500
- To: "Jon Gunderson" <jongund@staff.uiuc.edu>, "Harvey Bingham" <hbingham@ACM.org>, <w3c-wai-ua@w3.org>
Harvey, While it is certainly true that some data tables use TH cells, I don't think that we should suggest that any table without TH is a layout table, which this wording seems to imply. We might want to say something like "Data tables may have distinct TH and TD cells..." As I recall, TH cells are new to HTML 4.0, and many designers are using the conventions of 3.2 as standard. Denis Anson -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Jon Gunderson Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 9:41 AM To: Harvey Bingham; w3c-wai-ua@w3.org Subject: Re: Review UA Guidelines 5.4 Tables Thank you for your comments Harvey, Jon At 02:22 AM 2/24/99 -0500, Harvey Bingham wrote: >5.4 Ensure that tables are accessible > >[Rather than the first paragraph jumping into complex tables, I'd start with >the distinction layout table vs data tables.] > >Tables are used to organize data, and in HTML have been used to layout >pages where the parts of the table are unrelated. > >Data tables have distinct TH head cells and TD data cells. The TD cell >content gains gain implicit identification from TH cells in the same >column and/or row. > >Tables are also used to achieve limited control over two-dimensional layout >of information otherwise unrelated. For these layout tables, a user agent >can assist the reader by indicating that no relationship should be expected. >Use of TH cells just for their formatting purpose in layout tables is >discouraged, as those TH cells imply that some TD cells should gain meaning >from the TH cell content. > >5.4.2. Provide access to header information for a given cell. > >Suggest that the user may choose the form and amount of this >information, possibly announcing the row heads only once and then >the column head or its abbreviation abbr="..." to announce the TD content. > >5.4.3 [Priority 1] >Allow the user to navigate among tables in a document. > >I question the need to navigate among tables, "table-tabbing". Most >tables stand alone. I certainly doubt it is Priority 1. > >If an author feels it is important to link the tables, that author >should provides a list of tables (LOT) with hyperlinks to the tables. >If such is present, then the table order is deemed significant for the >reader, and that list should suffice. I believe there is no need for a >user agent to facilitate this. If the author is concerned, an ><a href="..." rev="LOT">...</a> pointing back to the list of tables >should suffice. > >5.4.4 Allow the user to navigate among table cells of a table (notably >left/right within a row and up/down within a column). > >Navigation must maintain cognizance of encountered cells with >implicit content resulting from spans. > >That assumes that the table writing direction is left-to-right. >The natural language of the table may cause the table to have dir="rtl", >right-to-left for order of the cells in a row (and order of letters in >a word, and words in a phrase.) Any row stub TH cells will by >default be on the right, rather than on the left. The colspan horizontal >spanning direction is leftward, so the right-most cell contains >the content. That content is not repeated in cells to its left. > >That can get further obscured if the writing directions change row-to-row, >say to allow boustrophedon writing (as the oxen plow)! > > >Regards/Harvey Bingham > Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign 1207 S. Oak Street Champaign, IL 61820 Voice: 217-244-5870 Fax: 217-333-0248 E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess
Received on Wednesday, 24 February 1999 11:11:38 UTC