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Re: column headings, labels, form elements

for

From: Lori K. Brown
Date: Aug 1, 2002 3:39PM

philip steven lanier wrote:

>"...since the purpose of the check box is readily apparent to sighted
>users."
>
>I looked at the screen capture you sent us, and it wasn't readily apparent
>to me (I am sighted) that the checkbox was for deleting the item.
>However, I am not a regular user of this site/page, so that does make a
>difference. Regardless, however, it seems to me that this is more of a
>usability issue. Users reading the page with a screen reader should have
>no trouble identifying the contents of the "checkbox column", since all
>the cells in that column are checkoxes and there is only one column with
>checkboxes. Of course there should be a way to identify what row the cell
>is in, but this does not concern the column heading.
>
>In any case, the checkboxes are not likely to be any more ambiguous for
>non-sighted users than for sighted users. From the accessibility
>standpoint it's probably fine. And since this is a forum on
>accessibility, not usability, I won't go there.
>

Mr Lanier --

All fair points. I want there to be a better column heading, but my
co-workers think terse is better, and are leery of spending the
horizontal real estate on what they regard as a somewhat redundant label.

Thanks for your feedback.

Lori Brown

>
>Philip Lanier
>Senior, Informatics
>University of Washington
>
>
>
>On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Lori K. Brown wrote:
>
>
>
>>Dear WebAIM:
>>
>>I work on a web-based collaboration software product called SiteScape
>>Forum. We are attempting to make the HTML that our product renders
>>standards compliant and accessible in the coming version.
>>
>>In a number of instances we list entries in a table, and the first few
>>columns of data include a checkbox that users can click to select the
>>item for deletion. Currently, the column that contains that checkbox
>>does not have any heading text above it, and there's really no logical
>>(at least to us) space available in the table to render a label for each
>>instance of the checkbox. Repetitive labeling ('this is the deletion
>>checkbox') seems pretty pointless, and a waste of screen real estate.
>>
>>My questions:
>>
>>1) Does every column of a data table HAVE to have some kind of text
>>heading? I understand that column headings should be associated with the
>>data they label, but do I in fact need to supply headings in the first
>>place? (I think it's common sense, but we cannot come to agreement on
>>this in my dept.)
>>
>>2) Can I solve this problem by using a title attribute on the checkbox
>>to label it for text reader users, since the purpose of the check box is
>>readily apparent to sighted users?
>>
>>To make it easier to tell what the heck I'm talking about, I have
>>uploaded a screen capture of the table I am talking about at:
>>http://www.sitescape.com/other/tableslabels.gif
>>
>>The columns that do have headings above them are associated with their
>>appropriate data with the tag scope="blah", as appropriate.
>>
>>Thanks in advance for any assistance.
>>
>>Lori K. Brown
>>User Interface Engineer
>>SiteScape, Inc.
>>
>>
>>
>>----
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>>
>>
>