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Re: Screen Readers as a Development Tool for Web Developers

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From: Leitschuh, Jonathan
Date: Jul 24, 2015 9:10AM

The primary reason that this was done (I think) is because it is much
easier to style div elements. Default HTML tables don't easily support
many of the features that many people want.
I wasn't there for the beginning of the development of this product.
UI-Grid just had many of the features that we needed but we also needed it
to be accessible. Accessibility in this case was something that was
thought up later rather than something that was thought of from day one.

One of the major reasons why a grid like this was created is because most
of the data can be virtualized when not within the scroll window. That way
if your dataset is 100k rows the browser is only showing 12. It make the
entire user experience much more responsive.

-Jonathan


On 7/23/15, 10:48 AM, "Graham Armfield" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

>_mallory is right in my view, that is a significant reason why devs would
>want to do this. I've seen it in websites for mobiles, and in hybrid apps
>too. Left and right scrolling of tables may deliver an accessible
>experience, but many people don't like the way it looks.
>
>
>Regards
>Graham Armfield
>
>
>
>coolfields.co.uk <http://www.coolfields.co.uk/>;
>M:07905 590026
>T: 01483 856613
>@coolfields <https://twitter.com/coolfields>
>
>On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 3:37 PM, _mallory < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>wrote:
>
>> While I'm unsure of which circumstances Jonathan's talking about, I
>> have seen developers avoid using tables for tables purely because of
>> mobile-suckage (that the best one can do with large tables is scroll
>> them).
>>
>> _mallory
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 12:46:33PM +0000, Moore,Michael (HHSC) wrote:
>> > Wouldn't you consider it to be a fundamental semantic flaw to
>>implement
>> a grid with divs rather than a table or am I missing something. I see
>>this
>> implementation all of the time. I understand using generic markup
>>(spans
>> and divs) to create constructs that do not map well to existing html
>> elements but for a grid a table provides the proper semantic structure.
>>-
>> Unless you are referring to a layout grid used to organize sections of a
>> page. Perhaps the problem is that developers are using the frameworks
>> layout grid construct where they should be dropping a table into a div
>> within the grid.
>> >
>> > Mike Moore
>> > Accessibility Coordinator
>> > Texas Health and Human Services Commission
>> > Civil Rights Office
>> > (512) 438-3431 (Office)
>> > (512) 574-0091 (Cell)
>> >
>> >