RE: Proposed checkpoint for table summary information

Ian,

How would you decide if you had met 9.4?  Would providing the link text be
enough?  How about the link address?  This checkpoint item is so vague that
I don't think that anyone could come up with a definitive determination of
meeting it.

I fear that the proposed checkpoint has the same limitations: too much info
described to vaguely.  Would access to the table caption and table summary
be adequate?  What if the table summary is absent?  What information "about"
table headers should be provided?  The content or just the existence of
them?  What is the intent of a table?  Do you mean that it is providing
tabular data as opposed to layout information, or do you mean that the table
is a data table presenting the demographics of a study sample?  If the
summary information is not there, and a caption is not there, the user agent
would have no way of knowing the intent of a table.

Table size information probably shouldn't be priority 1.  This information
isn't necessarily available to the visual user, since tables may be larger
than the available screen space.

Denis Anson, MS, OTR
Assistant Professor
College Misericordia
301 Lake St.
Dallas, PA 18612

Member since 1989:
RESNA: An International Association of Assistive Techology Professionals
Website: http://www.resna.org
RESNA ANNUAL CONFERENCE -- "RESNA 2000"
ORLANDO, FL, JUNE 28 -- July 2, 2000

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org]On Behalf
Of Ian Jacobs
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 1999 1:44 PM
To: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
Subject: Proposed checkpoint for table summary information

Hello,

I received an action item at the 6 October teleconf [1] to propose
a checkpoint for table summary information. The goals of the proposal:

1) Create a checkpoint analogous to 9.4 (for links):

   9.4  For a selected link, provide information to help
        the user decide whether to follow the link.

2) Replace existing 9.8 and 9.9 which were for dependent user agents
   only:

   9.8 Provide access to header information for a selected table
            cell. [Priority 1]

   9.9 For dependent user agents only. Indicate the row and column
       dimensions of a selected table. [Priority 3]

PROPOSED CHECKPOINT:

  For a selected table, provide information to help the user
  understand the purpose of the table and the organization
  of its cells.
     For example, provide information about table headers,
     table dimensions, table caption and summary information,
     cell position information, headers associated with a
     selected table cell, etc.

  I suggest priority 1 for this checkpoint.

 - Ian

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/1999OctDec/0071.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WAI-USERAGENT-19991005
--
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Tuesday, 12 October 1999 08:58:54 UTC