Re: WCAG-ISSUE-23 (DavidMacD): We should consider a new "Failure to provide role=presentation on a layout table"

Suggest the success criterion would be 1.3.1 Info and Relationships.

I also ask ramon and sailesh to provide data on the claims that layout
tables are ignored by screen readers. I understand that some SR's use
heuristics to try to determine whether a table is being used for layout or
not, but these mechanisms are fallible. Anecdotally in my day to day work I
encounter usage of layout tables the semantics of which are (incorrectly)
announced by SR's. It should also be noted that regardless of the AT
behaviour, the roles/properties of layout tables are always exposed in
accessibility APIs whenever they are used. role=presentation provides an
unambiguous indicator (and depending on the browser) actually removes the
semantics from the accessibility tree.



--

Regards

SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>


On 2 June 2014 08:39, Wilco Fiers <w.fiers@accessibility.nl> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> I think Sailesh and Ramón make an excellent point. Under which success
> criterion would you say this is a failure? Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it
> does not seem like any of the success criteria currently require this. It
> would therefore seem that adding this failure technique would broaden the
> scope of a success criterion beyond what it was initially designed for. And
> considering that WCAG 2.0 is normative and the techniques are not, I don't
> think that's something techniques should do.
>
> Regards,
> Wilco
>
> ________________________________________
> Van: Sailesh Panchang [spanchang02@yahoo.com]
> Verzonden: zondag 1 juni 2014 17:03
> Aan: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group;
> rcorominas@technosite.es
> Onderwerp: Re: WCAG-ISSUE-23 (DavidMacD): We should consider a new
> "Failure  to  provide role=presentation on a layout table"
>
> I second Ramón : not having role=presentation on layout tables cannot be a
> failure.
> Sure ARIA / HTML5 may permit  one to explicitly mark layout tables with
> the role but it cannot be 'required'.
> In several cases, it may be redundant and create extra work for
> developers. Consider:
> A table with a single column or row or even a table  with 2 rowslike:
> <table><tr><td colspan=2">Some content</td></tr>
> <tr><td>something 1</td><td>Something 2</td></tr>
> </table>
> Consider the content that is up there but will fail WCAG2 because this
> role is not set on the layout tables.
> The role will certainly help AT when used on a 2x2 type layout table that
> is most likely interpreted as a data table.
> Regards,
> Sailesh
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Sun, 6/1/14, Ramón Corominas <rcorominas@technosite.es> wrote:
>
>  Subject: Re: WCAG-ISSUE-23 (DavidMacD): We should consider a new "Failure
>  to  provide role=presentation on a layout table"
>  To: "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group" <
> w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
>  Date: Sunday, June 1, 2014, 8:05 AM
>
>  Hello all,
>
>  Although I agree that layout
>  tables are evil and should die, I cannot
>  see this as a WCAG failure. Simple layout
>  tables (no <th>, no <caption>,
>  no @summary) are usually ignored by most screen
>  readers, even if they
>  don't have the
>  role="presentation", and behavior does not change
>
>  whenadding it. Therefore, I cannot find a
>  justification to include a
>  failure that
>  would force developers to add a role that has no practical
>
>  effect on accessibility.
>
>  Regards,
>  Ramón.
>
>  Steve
>  noted:
>
>  > Note: HTML5
>  requires role=presentation on layout tables
>  >
>  > " If a table is
>  to be used for layout it MUST be marked with the
>  > attribute role="presentation"
>  for a user agent to properly represent the
>  > table to an assistive technology and to
>  properly convey the intent of
>  > the
>  author to tools that wish to extract tabular data from the
>  document."
>  >
>  >
>
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/tabular-data.html#the-table-element
>  > --
>  > On 1 June 2014
>  10:14, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
>
>  > Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org
>  <mailto:sysbot+tracker@w3.org>>
>  wrote:
>  >
>  >
>     WCAG-ISSUE-23 (DavidMacD): We should consider
>  a new "Failure to
>  >
>     provide role=presentation on a layout
>  table"
>  >
>  >
>     http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/track/issues/23
>  >
>  >
>     Raised by: David MacDonald
>  >     On product:
>  >
>  >     We
>  should consider a new "Failure to provide
>  role=presentation on a
>  >
>     layout table." In the old days there were
>  many wars about whether to
>  >
>     allow layout tables. wai aria has now solved
>  the issue pretty well
>  >
>     and we should consider requiring it now on
>  layout tables.
>  >
>  >
>
>  >
>  >
>
>
>
>
>
>