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Re: textbox in table cell

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Mar 26, 2008 2:50PM

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Moore, Michael
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> The use of the title as defined by the W3C
> "This attribute offers advisory information about the element for which
> it is set." source:
> http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#adef-title I think that
> providing a description of what to put in the input would qualify as
> advisory information.

To play devil's advocate a bit - if the information provided in the
title attribute is *necessary* to ensure accessibility, then is it
really "advisory"? You wouldn't want to use title to provide vital or
required information or content. It should be reserved for
supplementary information.

Now in this case, because the table headers already provides the
information, but not necessarily in a way that is friendly to screen
readers, then you could certainly argue that repeating that
information in the title attribute is indeed advisory.

And to clarify, the only cases where most screen readers will read the
title attribute by default is for form elements that have no labels
and for frames.

Like many things in accessibility, there really isn't a right answer.
Title works in this case and provides the necessary accessibility. If
you think that this is a misuse of the title attribute and actually
care about such things, then hidden labels might be the better option.

Jared Smith
WebAIM