Re: Helping Canvas Tag Be Accessible

On Jul 30, 2009, at 18:17, Anne van Kesteren wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:49:47 +0200, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@opera.com 
> > wrote:
>> If we cannot ensure authors to do the right thing, how can we ensure
>> they'll do the right thing if we add APIs to <canvas> that make it do
>> the same as SVG? That argument doesn't really add up.
>
> To expand on this. Tables for layout is a problem. We do not solve  
> this problem by endorsing using tables for layout and adding  
> elaborative APIs so you can make pages formatted using tables  
> accessible. It is highly unlikely "lazy" authors will pick up on  
> that. You solve it by providing a far better alternative (CSS) that  
> has a ton of advantages over using tables and provides better  
> accessibility without effort.

Actually, you also solve it by detecting layout tables and linearizing  
them for speech or small-screen presentation and by allowing authors  
to flag layout tables with role=presentation explicitly. Having better  
CSS alternatives available doesn't help until browsers that need  
layout tables have been phased out, and even then, there's the issue  
of adapting legacy content. In this case though, CSS grid layout isn't  
even deployable in the latest releases of top browsers yet.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Wednesday, 5 August 2009 12:51:55 UTC