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Re: JAWS Table behavior

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From: Kinnunen,Daniel (DFPS)
Date: Sep 24, 2010 9:45AM

FYI, JAWS seems to work okay with complex column headers (where a header
spans multiple columns), but still does not read complex row headers
properly (where a header cell spans multiple rows).

When moving left and right within a single row, JAWS will announce all
column headers associated with each data cell, even if the header spans
multiple columns. However, if a row header spans multiple rows, JAWS
announces all row headers only for the first row in the span when moving
up and down within a single column.

To illustrate, in your second example table that uses ID and HEADERS,
use Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow and Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow to move down the first
data column (PAST, FY 01).

Moving down the column, JAWS says this as you move to each cell:

Salaries, Bob, $35,000.
Sally, $35,000.
Facilities, Repairs, $3000.
Cleaning, $100.

Notice that the Major heading category (Salaries or Facilities) is
announced ONLY for the first row in that category. This is arguably
okay, since the user can assume the category is the same until a change
is announced.

Now move back UP the column using Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow. JAWS says this:
Facilities, Repairs, $3000.
Sally, $35,000.
Salaries, Bob, $35,000.

Note that again, the major category is announced only for the first
(top) row in the category. So when I move from the first row of the
Facilities category to the last row of the Salaries category (Sally's
salary), JAWS does not announce the change in the row header. So as far
as the listener knows, Sally is one of the facilities costs, because
JAWS did not tell me I am now in the Salaries category.

As far as I can tell, this is common to JAWS 9, 10, and 11, and there is
no JAWS verbosity option that corrects this behavior.

In a perfect world, JAWS would handle column headers that span multiple
columns and row headers that span multiple rows in the same manner. I
would encourage you to go to the Freedom Scientific support site and
report this as a bug. Perhaps eventually it will get fixed.

Regards,
Dan Kinnunen