- From: Christophe Strobbe <christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be>
- Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:01:42 +0200
- To: <wai-xtech@w3.org>
At 09:37 11/09/2009, Schnabel, Stefan wrote: >Imagine there will be a W3C "summary creator tool" on the web that >will ask you 10 questions about your table.. > >You feed it with facts about structure etc. and it gives you the >grammatically and semantically correct text in full consensus to W3C >"summary text" definitions. THAT would be a Web 2.0 app! In how many languages would it be available? Language-related tools all too often are available only in or for the English language. Best regards, Christophe Strobbe >And the advantage is there is only ONE reference to deal with to >write a good summary :) > >- Stefan > >-----Original Message----- >From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On >Behalf Of Jim Jewett >Sent: Freitag, 11. September 2009 02:52 >To: HTML WG Public List >Cc: W3C WAI-XTECH >Subject: Example of Good Summary??? > >[example of a supposedly good summary follows] > >> <table summary="This table presents traveling expenses. Rows contain > >> destinations, traveling dates, and grand total. Columns contain expense > >> category and total. The first column contains merged table cells."> > >> <!-- Remainder of table --> > >Tab Atkins wrote: > > Looks like jgraham found the table in question, located in the > HTML4.01 spec: > > http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#h-11.4.2 > > > Interestingly, this table is *completely* different from every table > > that we tried to generate in IRC based on the summary. > >(It appears that the table was there to illustrate axis, rather than >summary, but still...) > >I'll be less diplomatic, and say that that summary confused me -- and >my confusion got worse when I tried to understand the table in terms >of the summary. > >I think the summary would improved by describing columns first, and by >using "or" rather than "and" on the row description. With additional >clarification, I came up with: > > "This table presents traveling expenses. Data columns contain expense > category and total. The row headers are the city (in an otherwise empty > row at the start of a row group), the date, or an indication that >it is row of > totals." > >But as part of untangling it to get there, I tried to recreate the >markup. (The table is presented as an image, and it took me a while >to notice that the markup appeared later.) I think more time on >getting the table format right, or at least using headers properly, >should be more useful than a summary. > >Then I noticed that the summary used in the actual specification was >much more clear (but less structural): > > summary="This table summarizes travel expenses > incurred during August trips to > San Jose and Seattle" > >Then I double-checked the alt= >"Image of a table listing travel expenses at two locations: San Jose >and Seattle, by date, and category (meals, hotels, and transport), >shown with subtitles" > >Barring the typo of "titles" for "totals", this seems to be a more >structural @summary, rather than an @alt. > >Since I really would like better accessibility, I'll try to make my >questions specific: > >(1) Is there some reason to believe that the supposed good summary is >actually better than the real summary, my rewording, or the existing >alt? For example, > (1a) Did someone do actual user testing? > (1b) Are there @summary conventions that AT users are familiar >with? (If so, are they documented somewhere?) > (1c) Is listing row meanings and then column meanings as ingrained >as which side of the road to drive on? > >(2) In this particular case, would any of the four choices (existing >summary, existing alt, summary from the wiki, my proposed rewording) >be unacceptable? > >(3) Now that we're all looking at the same table, is there an even >better @summary? > (3a) Is there one that could be produced from header values? > (3b) Could it be produced from header values, if the table had >better structure? (It seemed to use <td> vs <th> largely for the >visual effect of boldface type; I'm not sure how they bolded the >800.27 in the image.) > (3c) Given the table header algorithm, would it be OK to >auto-generate that better summary, so that people could spend the time >fixing their structure instead of patching around it with a >hand-crafted summary that might not be maintained? > >-jJ -- Christophe Strobbe K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD Research Group on Document Architectures Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442 B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee BELGIUM tel: +32 16 32 85 51 http://www.docarch.be/ --- "Better products and services through end-user empowerment" http://www.usem-net.eu/ --- Please don't invite me to LinkedIn, Facebook, Quechup or other "social networks". You may have agreed to their "privacy policy", but I haven't.
Received on Friday, 11 September 2009 15:02:28 UTC