Re: Table tutorial comment

Hello Eric,
I thought we are giving objective  suggestions to meet WCAG 2
compliance not based on opinions but on documented specs and facts.
If the doctype is HTML4, td with scope is valid and breaks nothing.
Please refer to the reasoning in the HTML4 specs .
In fact TH in the second column may not be agreeable  to some UI
designers (even with HTML5) because they may not want centered and
bolded content in the middle of a table. Using CSS to do away the
visual effect of TH  negates the proper use of TH.  So when it does
not suit UI design, using TD and scope may be the  way to go ... sure
it may not be valid in HTML5 but that does not fail SC 4.1.1 or any
WCAG2 SC.

>>During the creation of the tutorials we tested with a variety of different >>screen readers and configurations. Almost every screen reader interpreted >>adjacent header cells as headings for the current header cell.
>>We decided after long discussions in EOWG that we’d like to recommend >>scope in all but the most simple instances. ... scope never makes the table >>less accessible.
Besides informing FS, I had also filed a bug with nvaccess.org. Both
SRs (current and previous version)  work as expected now. Telling
developers to put in  more markup than what's required based on
testing with SRs  that had bugs  is not helpful for developers or
testers. Would you fail a table if it had only TH and no scope? How do
you define small or 'most simple' table?
Thanks for your consideration; I hope the comments are reviewed by
more within EO-WG.
Sailesh Panchang


On 1/6/15, Eric Eggert <ee@w3.org> wrote:
> Hi Sailesh,
>
> the majority of your amendment was covered by my earlier response, just
> a quick note on one aspect here:
>
> On 2 Jan 2015, at 14:27, Sailesh Panchang wrote:
>
>> Amendment to item #5 sent on Dec 31:
>> "The only instance where scope is needed in a simple data table is
>> where the row identifier is not in the first column like in "Example
>> 4: Table with an offset column of header cells".
>> should read:
>> "The only instance where scope is needed in a simple data table is
>> where the row identifier is not in the first column like in "Example
>> 4: Table with an offset column of header cells if they are marked up
>> as TD and not TH. It is valid in HTML4 to use TD with the scope
>> attribute and there is an explicit remark about this in the HTML4
>> guidance doc".
>
> While the use of scope in on a TD element seems possible in HTML4, I
> wouldn’t consider this as best practice. With HTML5, scope isn’t
> allowed on TD elements anymore, so I don’t think including this is too
> relevant and would complicate the message that we try to convey.
>
> Thanks again for your suggestions,
> Eric
>
>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Sailesh Panchang
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Eric Eggert
> Web Accessibility Specialist
> Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at Wold Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>

Received on Tuesday, 6 January 2015 14:36:39 UTC