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Re: Question on a caption for Accessible Tables withNavigation

for

From: Praunicorn
Date: Sep 17, 2019 12:17AM

Hi All,

I am new to Accessibility testing , Can any body guide me how to start testing with screen readers.

Best Regards,
Unicorn

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 4:45 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Question on a caption for Accessible Tables withNavigation

That is a matter for screen reader vendors mostly.
This is a bit like the page title (the <title> element).
Jaws fouses on it and it is the first line in the virtual buffer.
NvDA announces it but it is not part of the virtual buffer.
I like the NVDA approach better when it comes to tables, announce It
but don't make it a part of the table, or at least alow table
navigation from it (maybe assume it is in the same place as the top
left cornercell).
Definitely something to file an issue about and spark a healthy debate.

The second table you suggest Mike looks much better.
There are two tings I would change there.

1. don't make the "select all" checkbox a <th>, just leave it as a
<td>, else a screen reader will announce "select all" before
announcing the label of any checkbox in the table, if you use table
navigation.
2. Keep in mind that screen readers announce the text referenced with
aria-describedby as one continuous string. The level of detail you put
into your description elemen is way too much to be understood as a
flat string.
I'd rather use aria-describedby to describe where you can find a
screen reader description of the table.
e.g.
<span id="description">A description of this table is availabel as an
h3 heading below the table</span>
<table aria-describedby="description">
t content.able
</table>
<div class="screenREader">
<h3>Table description</h3>
...
</div>

Then add an h3 heading with text like "table description" at the start
of your screen rader description element and place it where the
insturctions put it.
There is an ARIA attribute that would be perfect for this, although t
is meant for a long description of images, but whether it is images or
tables, it is not really supported by assistive technology.
The attribute is aria-details



On 9/15/19, <EMAIL REMOVED> < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Mike,
>
> That is good to know. But still the bigger question is the behaviour of
> screen readers with captions present in tables. Why is there a difference?
>
>