WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Question on a caption for Accessible Tables with Navigation

for

From: Mike Barlow
Date: Sep 17, 2019 2:13PM


Thanks Birkir, that aria-details may be the perfect thing.

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 7:15 PM Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> 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?
> >
> >