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RE: Summary in Tables

for

From: Jukka Korpela
Date: Oct 21, 2002 4:58AM

John Foliot wrote:

> Providing a summary for redundant or useless information is
> taxing on users of screen reading technology.

It is, but could it also be informative as regards to the fact that the
table _is_ for layout only? Without any summary attribute, how could the
user know that it is a layout table? Knowing that would help in deciding
that the table structure does not need to be guessed.

Or does it? What does "layout table" really mean? If a table is used around
a single cell to get a border, then it's surely for layout only. If it is
used to put two pieces of material side by side, then it has, in some sense,
a structure that perhaps should be explained: the first cell contains ...
and the second cell contains ... Maybe.

--
Jukka Korpela, senior adviser
TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre
http://www.tieke.fi/
Diffuse Business Guide to Web Accessibility and Design for All:
http://www.diffuse.org/accessibility.html


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