Thread Subject: Re: Group A distinguishing

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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Tue, Oct 24 2006 12:30 PM

> I don't think that the "name role and state" requirement has
> anything to do with tables, skip links, frames etc. as
> Sailesh and Andrew seem to have concluded. It is talking
> about user interface elements like check boxes or tree views
> which are interactive objects on the web or in software programs.

Just because some of these are often taken care of in HTML doesn't mean
that they don't need to be dealt with in many other cases. For example,
if someone designs a tabular layout with PRE elements they are not
exposing the accurate role as a result of not using the correct element.
Similarly, if you don't use a TH element for a table heading, you aren't
representing the role correctly. Name applies to images, whether
interactive or not. We even require "description" for tables via the
summary attribute...

There are best practices and established methods for dealing with common
HTML accessibility issues, and I don't want to remove these entirely,
but there are too many cracks that new or unusual development patterns
can fall through, and an uber-standard that can include these other
issues and that can also provide requirements that encompass these.

AWK

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