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RE: Same link text going to different places

for

From: Leesa Lavigne
Date: Aug 10, 2002 1:58PM

Hi, Just a thought. Could you change the table so the towns were on one
axis and the Services on the other, using a caption of Matrix of campus
links by Town and Service. Then place icons or text in the table using the
proper markup for column and row headers. I would think it would be much
easier for a screen reader since the person could scan down to find the town
they were interested in and then allow thier reader to read the links,
including table header info coded in, across. When the table is coded
properly the reader should only repeat the town name when the visiter
changes rows. Leesa Lavigne

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Vosloo [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 4:07 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Same link text going to different places


On your 2nd issue (thought it appropriate to create a new thread):

Also related (in my mind at least) are questions about repeating the
same link text for links that go to different places when the links are
tabularized. The example I have in mind here is for campus links for
different Student Services at http://www.umassonline.net/services/. I
know this violates the WAI Priority 2 link text checkpoint; how would
others handle this? One possibility is the title field.

I'm also stuck on this point ... I suppose it depends on how much
support the TITLE attribute has. Anyone got any advice?

Steve




"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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--
Carol Foster, Web Developer
Internet Publishing Group, Information Technology Services University of
Massachusetts, President's Office
phone: (413) 587-2130
fax: (413) 587-2148
mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.umass-its.net/ipg
--



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