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Re: [External Sender]Table Accessibility

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From: Philip Kiff
Date: Jun 9, 2020 3:31PM

On 2020-06-09 10:57, Khaleel Eksheir wrote:
> Thanks all for the feedback. My question was about PowerPoint specifically.
> It used to allow Alt Text for tables. That is why I used to recommend it.
> But as a result of this threat, I learned that MS is phasing out Alt Text
> for tables which makes sense.

Just a quick clarification here, to make sure I haven't missed something.

The ability to add alt text to tables in Microsoft PowerPoint has not
changed, has it? I can add alternative text to a table in PowerPoint
today in my up-to-date version of Office 365 for Windows. I am not aware
of a plan to phase out that feature.

But the recommended best practice in PowerPoint has been moving away
from adding a summary to the alternative text property of a table. And
the built-in PowerPoint accessibility checker does not add a warning or
error for tables that have no alternative text or summary.

My impression is that there may still be some cases and some PowerPoint
documents where alternative text summaries of a table are useful - it
depends on the intended audience and purpose.

For me, the question of whether or not an alternative text table summary
is useful in an Office document relates to the question of whether an
Office document actually provides a robust mechanism for assistive
technology users to then use the data within a table.  My impression
that Microsoft Office is not currently capable of providing good
navigation and access to all users in the case of a complex table, such
as those with multiple spanned headers, or even just a table with both
header columns and rows. And it is partly for this reason that the use
of table summaries in PowerPoint and Word has gradually fallen out of
favour.

A simple table should be understandable to assistive technology users
without requiring additional explanation. Office allows you to mark the
header row, and that's all you really need. A table that is so complex
that it requires a summary to explain its structure will not actually be
usable by some assistive technology users - those tables would be better
placed in HTML or PDF document formats (both of which can handle complex
tables) instead of placing that data in PowerPoint or Word.

Sometimes, I have read that table summaries in Office documents should
explain the purpose of the table, rather than describing its data
structure. This is similar to the function of a table caption in some
file formats. But I think it is generally accepted now that such
"caption" type of information should be made visible to all users,
rather than placing it as alternative text, where only screen reader
users would access it.

I'm not sure if this jibes with what everyone has already said, but
that's my understanding of alternative text for tables in Office
documents these days.

Phil.

Philip Kiff
D4K Communications