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Re: Table SUMMARY Tag

for

From: adam solomon
Date: Mar 3, 2011 1:03PM

The idea that information should be equal for sighted users and assistive
tech, as it relates to our discussion of the summary attribute, is a very
romantic idea - unfortunately in my humble opinion it is not practical. The
fact is that extra descriptive information about a table which can really
help out an AT user, will never be allowed in by a web designer on the basis
that it is superfluous, and that it does not fit in to their wonderful
design. So, in effect, we are only hurting the AT user. As a matter of fact,
I see more and more developers turning to hidden texts to provide necessary
info for the AT users, so by removing the summary attribute, all we will be
doing is to force the developer to add more hidden text where the is a
complex table. Too bad.

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:36 AM, Joshue O Connor < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

> On 02/03/2011 18:09, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
> > On the other hand, the HTML5 drafts designate the SUMMARY attribute as
> > obsolete and declare that authors must not use it. Whatever we think of
> > HTML5, it seems to be the way the world is going. I guess the reason for
> > making SUMMARY as obsolete is twofold: first, it has fairly limited
> support
> > and usage; second, it is better replaced by explanations that every user
> can
> > make use of.
>
> FWIW For the first point, @Summary is very well supported in most
> browsers, it is recognised by most screen reading AT and announced as
> soon as the table is given focus.
>
> For the second, while on paper this looks like a good idea, removing
> @summary from HTML 5 because it couldn't be used by _everybody_ became a
> Shibboleth that lost all meaning. @summary content could be exposed to
> sighted users if browsers were wired to do so.
>
> The fact is (IMO of course), that what @summary did/does for blind users
> it actually does very well. The fact that it didn't do it for _all_
> users, was its death knell. Which to me, is a pity. While philosophies
> like Universal Design are great, I would rather see elements and
> attributes that support some user groups very well, than elements and
> attributes that serve all users poorly.
>
> The two choices may not be even be mutually exclusive but c'est la guerre.
>
> Cheers
>
> Josh
>
>
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