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Re: Accessibility in Financial Tables in HTML

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From: Chagnon | PubCom.com
Date: Oct 15, 2015 9:05AM

Sailesh wrote: "Screen reader users are expected to configure their AT as per their needs and significance of the content they are reviewing"

Yes, that's true. They should do that.
But they are mere human beings and usually don't do that, so we can't expect them to do it.

It is extremely rare for a user, disabled or not, to custom configure or adjust the settings of their software. All of us use it "out of the box."

Going back to Julie's original post: what do with negative numbers, dollar signs, and other table details:

There's no one solution or best practice at this time. You've heard a several different, solid arguments from knowledgeable people.

I think you can find some middle ground between a minimalist approach and an overwrought detailed approach that would help everyone use and understand the table quicker and with fewer comprehension errors. Unfortunately, we can't control the AT used by some people, nor their capability to use it.

So, taking a precept from the traditional publishing-editing world, write for your audience.

Here's an example on how that could translate to our accessibility world:
If your audience is the general public, you can't guarantee that they would understand that parentheses denote negative numbers, but if the audience are those who specialize in accounting, finance, or state budgeting process, then assume they do have that basic understanding.

And if someone who is sighted will be confused by the table or make errors, then assume that someone who is using a screen reader will also be in the same situation.

--Bevi Chagnon

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Sailesh Panchang
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2015 9:20 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessibility in Financial Tables in HTML

I agree with Cliff: "If sighted people are used to negative numbers being in parentheses, then blind people of the same background should be, too".
Screen reader users are expected to configure their AT as per their needs and significance of the content they are reviewing.
Sailesh


On 10/15/15, _mallory < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> It also can't hurt to state, before the table (or maybe after, but
> better before) how you denote negatives, or if the dollars are in
> millions (or that it's in dollars at all)... There was a time when I
> did not know of the (parentheses) convention for negative numbers, and
> only learned of it when I was old enough to do taxes. So it doesn't
> hurt to tell people in a quick short sentence stuff that might be
> obvious or well-known to the majority of readers anyway.
>
> If someone knows or suspects their AT won't read out a symbol, knowing
> beforehand that a symbol is being used can let people decide if they
> need to fiddle with their punctuation first. In any case, can't hurt
> to say it.
>
> This can give you more freedom inside the table itself.
>
> _mallory
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 02:29:03PM -0700, Don Mauck wrote:
>> From my understanding of this thread, it seems to me that each "row"
>> should have the math sign relevant to that row. I am however, only
>> thinking from a screen readers perspective and realize that there are
>> other contributing factors. What I'm not clear on, is if the intent
>> is that each row could have a different math sign and that there will
>> be columns of data related to a column heading.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Julie Lewis [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:55 PM
>> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessibility in Financial Tables in HTML
>>
>> Sorry if I don¹t do this right it¹s been a looong time since I
>> participated in an email only list-serv.
>>
>> I wrote:
>> > The printed version of the table has dollar signs in front of the
>> >numbers on the first and last rows and percent signs only on the
>> >first and last rows. Does that provide enough context? Or should
>> >every cell have $ or % explicitly called out?
>>
>> Olaf said:
>> Å this does not have anything to do with accessibility, but with
>> usability
>>
>> I reply:
>>
>> I disagree. From a usability perspective it¹s pretty clear that less
>> is more. The question is whether a non-sighted user will have enough
>> context to figure out what the numbers mean if they are just traversing the table.
>>
>> The header for percent change is self-explanatory, but the headers
>> for the dollar amounts aren¹t unless the user actually listens to the title.
>>
>> Since HTML5 has deprecated the table summary tag, (why oh why did
>> they do
>> that?) that may not be an option going forward.
>>
>> It¹s a bummer that MacOS doesn¹t read the parentheses, since that¹s a
>> much cleaner way of representing negatives than relying on a dash.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rio
>>
>> >> >> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>> >> >> >> archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>> > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >