Re: Complex Table Examples

Ian Hickson wrote:

> (For instance, saying summary="This table is for layout only" is a 
> complete waste of time -- if the author cares about accessibility, then 

It is reccommended for accessibility because it warns the AT user that, 
whilst the AT may try to describe the construct as a table, it isn't 
really one.

> he should not use the table for layout in the first place. Effectively, 
> that value just says "Hi, I'm too lazy to bother making my page usable for 
> you, but I'm going to pretend I care".)

Unfortunately, a lot of accessibility advice has to be directed at 
people who think like this.  In particular, this sort of thing can be 
added as the result of decisions by relatively junior people, as it 
doesn't impact the display on manager's PC, or development or testing 
timescales.  Changing basic implementation strategies tends to require 
selling accessibility to senior management.

> 
> The same kind of study for headers="" would be useful. In particular, it 

There is a chicken and egg problem.  AT isn't designed to use 
accessibility features.  It is designed to make real like web sites, 
i.e. those designed by people who are "too lazy to bother making my page 
usable for you" as accessible as possible.   Therefore, AT won't support 
features unless support is trivial, or people start to use them.  It is 
difficult to sell the use of features to management if user agents don't 
support them.

My feeling is that headers have a low abuse risk, because they are not 
subject to the pressure that exists to provide some alt text, nor do 
they have visual side effects, like those that cause alt to be 
interpreted as a "tooltip" attribute.

Received on Tuesday, 15 May 2007 07:03:12 UTC