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Re: th scope=row

for

From: Brian Lovely
Date: Apr 6, 2016 10:34AM

Logan

Birkir is spot on here, but what I don't know is if you mean a table where each cell has two headers (row and column) that are necessary to understand the context of the information in the cell. For instance, a task list with column headers "Fred, Mary, Sam, Jane" and row headers "Monday, Tuesday, etc.", then you would need the data from both row and column headers in order to know that a task was assigned to say, Fred to perform on Monday.


Brian Lovely
<EMAIL REMOVED>



> On Apr 6, 2016, at 12:20 PM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Logan
>
> I approach this more based on content than WCAG criteria.
> I ask myself, "do I need to know the value of the leftmost cell in
> this row (or any cell), in order to fully understand the cell I am
> looking at)?
> E.g. if your table is a task list that consists of "days of the week"
> column headers, then you do not need to hear the value of the leftmost
> column to fill in infor for any of the other columns.
> You don't need to hear the tasks in the Sunday column (assuming it is
> the lefmost column) in context of the tasks listed in the Thursday
> column.
>
> But if your table consists of the column headers "name, email, phone
> number", then you need to know the name of the person in order to
> fully understand the email or phone number cells. Making the name
> cells into row headers communicates this relationship and enables
> assistive technologies such as screen readers to announce these in
> context.
>
> A few other rules of thumb:
> For two-column tables (or name, value pairs), I do not require row
> headers, users can easily switch between columns (I recommend it as
> good practice but definitely do not require it).
>
> If you have a simple data table (with header cells in first row and/or
> first column), you do not need to specify the scope attribute. Jaws 14
> and older had a very annoying bug where it assumed all th cels where
> column headers, so it would announce the first 20 cells in the first
> column for cell 21 unless they had scope="row", but I think all more
> recent screen reader versions since handle this correctly.
>
> I could go on about complex tables, but I think, or at least hope,
> this gets you started with this question. :)
> Cheers
> -Birkir
>
>
>
> On 4/6/16, Trafford, Logan < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> I'm documenting steps for non-technical content creators who have some
>> limited control over table creation.
>>
>> I'm looking for a clear explanation of when to define a first column cell as
>> a <th> with scope="row" as opposed to it just being a <td>. Anybody have
>> one, or know where in the W3C or WCAG resources to find one? WCAG
>> references to "simple tables" but it doesn't actually explain what is meant
>> by that (at least I can't locate an explanation). It also references using
>> scope, but I can't seem to find anything that references if or when the
>> first column HAS to be defined as a <th>.
>>
>>
>> Logan
>>
>>
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>
>
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