WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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Re: Table headers not behaving

for

From: Mark Rew
Date: Sep 10, 2002 10:34AM

When we develop we should develop to the standards such as Section 508, html
4.01 etc. This way we will work with most of the packages that have agreed to
use these stanards. Then we try to encourage software vendors to comply with
the same standards. One way is the US Government mandating compliance with
Section 508 as a requirement of a purchase order.

Mark Rew

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Foliot - bytown internet" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 12:43 PM
Subject: RE: Table headers not behaving


> Which poses the question: do developers code to standards and leave the
> implementation to the "interpreters (user agents)" or do we code to software
> bugs such as the one documented below? As Paul notes, 2 major screen
> reading technologies get it right, one gets it wrong.
>
> Developing complex tables is work enough to ensure accessibility, do we need
> to also work around software bugs? Everybody has their role to play,
> including Freedom Scientific. While not everybody agreed with the WaSP
> stance (http://www.webstandards.org/) when they first emerged, two years
> later we have (generally) compliant browsers. So who was right?
>
> I do not pose this question to antagonize, but by the same token I
> (personally) feel that it needs to be discussed.
>
> (Please - no flames!)
>
> JF
>
> >