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Thread: FW: Multipart table

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From: Lucy Greco
Date: Mon, Feb 25 2013 3:33PM
Subject: FW: Multipart table
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Hello:

This markup works for me but I wanted to see if any of you had ideas on how
to make this table more accessible. Tables have always been one of my
sticking points. Lucy



http://coe.berkeley.edu/static/test/announcement-table.html

What you should find is a single table, with global title and header (in
caption and thead sections, respectively), and then content broken into
four sections, one for each academic year, via multiple tbody sections.
Each section contains a label (in a column-spanning table header cell) and
then three columns of table data (course title, number of fall credits,
number of spring credits). Note that in most cases courses are taught only
in one semester or the other.

Take it for a spin in JAWS and let me know if it's easily navigable and
understandable. Two extra credit questions would be:

- Is the dash, in an otherwise empty table cell, an acceptable way to
indicate a course is not available in a given semester?
- Do the footnotes, indicated by superscript numbers in the table cells
linked to note text below, work in JAWS? Does the linking make it easier or
harder to navigate?*[LG ] * thanks Lucy

From: David Farough
Date: Tue, Feb 26 2013 8:53AM
Subject: Re: FW: Multipart table
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I will place my responses within the text of your message.

>>> Lucy Greco < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > 05:33 PM Monday, February 25, 2013
>>>
- Is the dash, in an otherwise empty table cell, an acceptable way
to
indicate a course is not available in a given semester?
Given that you are providing totals for these columns, maybe 0 would
work for this, however the dashes are being spoken by Jaws using the
"some" punctuation setting. Another issue arises with regard to some of
the totals. For example the totals for Freshman year the total for fall
is displayed as 16-17. Jaws will speak one six one seven omitting the
dash. There are settings for number processing that control this. the
following text describes this setting.
When selected, numbers that contain dashes without spaces are read as
individual digits. Telephone number formatting, where a dash is preceded
by and followed by a digit, is an example of this type of number string.
This check box is used in conjunction with the Number Processing combo
box. This means that JAWS processes numbers based on the current
selection in the Number Processing combo box. This check box is
selected by default.

- Do the footnotes, indicated by superscript numbers in the table
cells
linked to note text below, work in JAWS? Does the linking make it
easier or
harder to navigate?*[LG ] *
Jaws does not indicate the superscript formatting of the text unless
you place the cursor on the text and query the font. A user can
configure Jaws to provide formatting information but people are not
likely to do this unless they are proof reading text.