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Re: Q: Table footnotes in Word

for

From: Jon Metz
Date: Mar 14, 2015 12:40PM

I don't agree with it being an accessibility violation. They are *related*
to the tabular data, so that makes them part of the information you are
providing. By this very definition, it would be meeting WCAG 2.0 1.3.1,
because it directly applies to how you are marking up the structure of the
table.

I do however agree with Sarah that unfortunately Word does a miserable job
organizing this stuff. Technically they should be in the footer cell, but
it might not be usable to people because of how badly Word handles it. So
placing them outside the table in this case might be the best case
scenario, and having them near the table would *also* be conforming to
1.3.1 because having them *inside* the table is "within the presentation"
but *outside* the table is "conveyed in text".

I think this is one of those situations where you just do what's best for
the user. This is something one of the really unfortunate realities about
accessibility. Sometimes you can't please everybody, so you need to figure
out how to make it usable to the widest possible audience (Take a look at
the all the problems that iPlayer from BBC is having with the inability to
make everyone happy).

If I were you, I'd leave them out and then try to get Microsoft to do
things appropriately so we can make things more accessible for a wider
audience. But however you do it it's still within the scope of 1.3.1 based
on my interpretation of it.

My two cents.

Jonathan


On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 6:08 PM, Ryan E. Benson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> I concur
>
> --
> Ryan E. Benson
>
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 6:00 PM, Jonathan Avila <
> <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
> > > We're under the impression that they should be within the <Table> tag,
> > in a row at the bottom. Essentially in a footer row.
> >
> > I would consider placing footnotes in a table a accessibility violation
> as
> > that information isn't tabular data. I believe the idea of the tfoot
> > element was for column summaries -- not other data that applies to the
> > table as a whole.
> >
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan Avila
> > Chief Accessibility Officer
> > SSB BART Group
> > <EMAIL REMOVED>
> >
> > 703-637-8957 (o)
> > Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Newsletter
> >
> >
> >