WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Thread: what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or <tfootr>

for

Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)

From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Nov 02 2011 6:15PM
Subject: what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or <tfootr>
No previous message | Next message →

As mentioned recently, I am working on a project to make our agency website accessible. I anticipate this project taking a couple months to complete.

We use Contribute as our CMS. It seems to be quite limited in its support of accessibility. For instance, when inserting a table, there is no way to define a caption, or to define <tfoot> for purposes of adding supporting footnotes on a table. I am resorting to just "captioning" the table with the appropriate heading level, but am not sure the best way to present table "footnotes". Currently, users have just dropped them into the bottom row .

Has anyone else struggled with this in your CMS and what was your practical solution?

Thanks,

Angela French
Internet Specialist
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
http://sbctc.edu
http://www.checkoutacollege.com/

From: Jared Smith
Date: Wed, Nov 02 2011 7:03PM
Subject: Re: what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or <tfootr>
← Previous message | Next message →

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 6:16 PM, Angela French wrote:

> For instance, when inserting a table, there is no way to define a caption, or to define <tfoot> for purposes of adding supporting footnotes on a table.

<tfoot> is not for footnotes at all. It's for a static footer,
generally used to duplicate column headers at the bottom of a table
and at the bottom of each printed page. <thead>, <tfoot>, and <tbody>
don't do anything for accessibility that I'm aware of (despite
repeated and persistent recommendations by many in the field that they
be implemented for accessibility purposes).

>  I am resorting to just "captioning" the table with the appropriate heading level,

Short of getting a proper CMS, this is probably the best you can do.
One could maybe use aria-labelledby or aria-describedby on the <table>
tag to point to the heading to associate the two, but I suppose if
your CMS doesn't support <caption>, it's a bit silly to suggest ARIA.

> but am not sure the best way to present table "footnotes".  Currently, users have just dropped them into the bottom row .

Definitely don't use <tfoot> or put them in as data in the bottom row.
As noted in the HTML5 spec, there aren't yet semantics for footnotes,
though it does suggest several alternatives -
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#footnotes

Jared

From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Nov 02 2011 7:12PM
Subject: Re: what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or <tfootr>
← Previous message | Next message →

>
>Definitely don't use <tfoot> or put them in as data in the bottom row.
>As noted in the HTML5 spec, there aren't yet semantics for footnotes, though
>it does suggest several alternatives -
>http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#footnotes
>
>Jared

Jared, for years I have used <tfoot> for table "foot" notes. You're saying this is a wrong usage? Here is an example:
http://htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/tables/tfoot.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/tables.html#edef-TFOOT

Here is one example of a table, I'm trying to make more accessible: http://sbctc.edu/college/f_tuition.aspx (the top one).

From: Jared Smith
Date: Wed, Nov 02 2011 7:57PM
Subject: Re: what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or <tfootr>
← Previous message | Next message →

On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Jared, for years I have used <tfoot> for table "foot" notes. You're saying this is a wrong usage?

Yes. The htmlhelp example (as is generally the case there) is
incorrect. The W3C page doesn't present a functional example of
<tfoot>, though it does not suggest it be used for footnotes.

As defined in the HTML spec (which you linked to), "The table head and
table foot should contain information about the table's columns." In
other words, the footer should repeat the column headers or provide
other descriptive information about the relevant columns. Unless the
spanned row contains information about all of the spanned columns
(which footnotes rarely would), defining a spanned row as a table
footer is quite a stretch from this definition, I think.

HTML5 defines it this way: "The tfoot element represents the block of
rows that consist of the column summaries (footers) for the parent
table element".

A primary issue with <tfoot> is that it must be in the markup before
the data contents of the table (even though it visually is presented
at the bottom of the table). This means that your footnotes would be
read by a screen reader before the content that references them. If
you put <tfoot> at the bottom of your table, your code would be
invalid.

> Here is one example of a table, I'm trying to make more accessible: http://sbctc.edu/college/f_tuition.aspx

Only put the data inside the table. The first cell, as you noted,
should be a <caption>. If you can't do captions, then it should
probably be a heading before the table. It definitely should NOT be in
a <thead> as it is currently marked up. The bottom "Source" cell is
not tabular data or a table footer, so it should be presented
immediately after the table. There's no way I know of to associate
this content to the table.

Jared

From: Angela French
Date: Thu, Nov 03 2011 9:15AM
Subject: Re: what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or <tfootr>
← Previous message | Next message →

Would anyone be able to provide me links to real examples of <tfoot> in use so I can get some practical examples in my mind?
Thanks, Angela

>-----Original Message-----
>From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto:webaim-forum-
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
>Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2011 6:58 PM
>To: WebAIM Discussion List
>Subject: Re: [WebAIM] what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or
><tfootr>
>
>On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
>> Jared, for years I have used <tfoot> for table "foot" notes. You're saying this
>is a wrong usage?
>
>Yes. The htmlhelp example (as is generally the case there) is incorrect. The
>W3C page doesn't present a functional example of <tfoot>, though it does
>not suggest it be used for footnotes.
>
>As defined in the HTML spec (which you linked to), "The table head and table
>foot should contain information about the table's columns." In other words,
>the footer should repeat the column headers or provide other descriptive
>information about the relevant columns. Unless the spanned row contains
>information about all of the spanned columns (which footnotes rarely
>would), defining a spanned row as a table footer is quite a stretch from this
>definition, I think.
>
>HTML5 defines it this way: "The tfoot element represents the block of rows
>that consist of the column summaries (footers) for the parent table
>element".
>
>A primary issue with <tfoot> is that it must be in the markup before the data
>contents of the table (even though it visually is presented at the bottom of
>the table). This means that your footnotes would be read by a screen reader
>before the content that references them. If you put <tfoot> at the bottom of
>your table, your code would be invalid.
>
>> Here is one example of a table, I'm trying to make more accessible:
>> http://sbctc.edu/college/f_tuition.aspx
>
>Only put the data inside the table. The first cell, as you noted, should be a
><caption>. If you can't do captions, then it should probably be a heading
>before the table. It definitely should NOT be in a <thead> as it is currently
>marked up. The bottom "Source" cell is not tabular data or a table footer, so
>it should be presented immediately after the table. There's no way I know of
>to associate this content to the table.
>
>Jared
>

From: Jared Smith
Date: Thu, Nov 03 2011 10:27AM
Subject: Re: what to do when CMS doesn't support table caption or <tfootr>
← Previous message | No next message

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Would anyone be able to provide me links to real examples of <tfoot> in use so I can get some practical examples in my mind?

Think of it this way - <tfoot> is simply a way to have the headers of
a table also appear at the bottom of the table. This is usually only
of use for very long tables - and primarily when a long table is
printed so that the footers appear at the bottom of each printed page.
This is a rare usage - and even then, of questionable utility. If you
use <tfoot>, you must have <tbody>. And in HTML <5, the <tfoot> must
come before the <tbody> in markup, which means it will probably be
read by screen readers before the data - potentially very confusing.

Most of the examples I found are not very complete or are wrong. It's
no wonder there's so much confusion. The table markup at
http://www.webtoolkit.info/scrollable-html-table.html is a good
example.

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_tfoot.asp and
http://www.littlewebhut.com/html/tfoot_tag/ use <tfoot> a little
differently - to provide a summary/totals of column data. I suppose
this works, though if the table were split across pages, it could be
very confusing to have the totals appear somewhere in the middle of
the data table.

All things considered, I've seen VERY few cases where <tfoot> or
<thead> are worth the effort. Again, they do nothing for accessibility
- they are primarily semantics for semantics sake.

Jared