Report of the HTML4/CSS2 Accessibility Review

Last revised October 24. 1997

This web page provides a guide to materials supporting the WAI review of HTML4 and CSS2 recommendations nominated by the HC Working Group and reviewed by the WAI Interest Group.

Pointers to detailed proposals is included. The recommendations are summarized very tersely here, and decorated with a few links to influential source materials.

This page will be maintained to try to keep it within 24 hours of current with respect to current discussion during the period from October 15th to Nov 10th.

How to use this document

Monitor this document at  http://www.w3c.org/WAI/group/HC/report.html (corrected 24 Oct).

Where this document refers to messages in the email archives, please take advantage of the thread index to read related discussion before and after the cited message.

If discussing these proposals in the HTML or CSS working groups, please cross-post to w3c-wai-hc@w3.org as well.

Review of the issues

• OPTION -- Making SELECT structures with lots of OPTIONs comprehensible
• TABLE -- Making TABLEs comprehensible
• DESC -- Text associated with images
• REF -- Associating HTML contents with external documents
• MEDIA -- Classifying user display and control

OPTION -- Making SELECT structures with lots of OPTIONs comprehensible.

• A choice of two proposals at the level of functionality comparable to the original proposal.
• OPTION message sent to the IG mailing list on Oct 16th.
• Clarify what is actually critical for accessibility in this area by discussion with the Interest Group.
• Original proposal from Megazone.

TABLE -- Making TABLEs comprehensible.

• TABLE message sent to the IG mailing list on Oct 16th.
• The  baseline operational concept in the HC mail archives should be regarded as having a rough consensus of support. The implication is that the HTML should contain enough information for browsers to perform these functions.
• Seek table reformatting functions from browser providers; refer issue to WAI Browser Guidelines group for further work.
• add  SCOPE attribute.
• Clarify summary attribute to say that where there is a caption, the summary should be written as if it will be said after the caption.
• address classes of tables (read by columns, read by rows, etc.) in the markup guidelines using the existing CLASS attribute. Refer to WAI Markup Guidelines group for further development, in cooperation with the Browser Guidelines Working Group.
• Implement  LINK and META enhancements in HTML4 to support experimentation by the WAI activities.
• Change the name of the AXES attribute to HEADERS. (added 24 Oct)

DESC -- Text associated with images

• DESC message sent to the IG mailing list on Oct 16th.
• Work with LONGDESC on IMG; normally inlined in the absense of image display
• ADD TITLE and LONGDESC to FRAME and IFRAME
• OBJECT contents scanned for links with AREA on them which function like a MAP entry when the image DATA of the object is displayed.

REF -- Associating HTML contents with external resources.

• Data publishers may wish to link TABLE to a resource (URL) which clarifies data usage in the table.
• It is not safe to assume that all tables in one HTML document are to be associated with the same such data dictionary (or rough equivalent).
• Audio output [in general, not just for persons with disabilities] will want access to pronunciation dictionaries.
• Acronyms and foreign languages are other applications for such links.
• Stylesheets selectively applied to quotes etc.

Suggested WAI recommendations from HC Working Group:

• REF message sent to the IG mailing list on Oct 16th.
• Seek review from RDF group
• Implement at least enough  LINK and META enhancements to ensure that dictionaries, including data dictionaries, can be TARGETed to an arbitrary HTML container element.

MEDIA -- Classifying user display and control

Suggested WAI recommendations from HC Working Group:

• MEDIA message sent to the IG mailing list on Oct 17th.
• add another top-level media type named either CONSOLE or TTY for character-grid and line-mode displays
• change wording around list of predefined MEDIA values to make the list extensible. A browser _may_ ignore media indications that do not match this list.
• Refer further work on how browser should handle this to browser guidelines group.

Lesser issues

Preserving the logical reading order of text.

 Example of problems as documented in the TRACE guidelines.

Suggested WAI recommendations from HC Working Group:

• Browser functions to crack tables referred to Browser Guidelines WG for refinement.
• Explicit order-of-reading markup of text fragments referred to Markup Guidelines working group for consideration.   LINK and META enhancements to be implemented in in HTML4 to give the guidelines group enough capability to work with.

For background, search  The HC list archives for "order". Browse both quarters; the thread runs over.

Image used as list bullet

Suggested WAI recommendations from HC Working Group:

• No change required to HTML.
• Continue work with CSS group in Markup Guidelines activity of WAI.

Controlling dynamic features

Gregg Vanderheiden copied over  a good summary by Kelly Ford. For more background search the webwatch-l  digest archive for "dynamism".

Suggested WAI recommendations from HC Working Group:
Refer to Browser Guidelines and Markup Guidelines for further consideration.

CSS2 review

The HC message Regarding CSS2 summarizes our position.