I partially agree with David but only partially.  The screen readers I've
used in recent years have no trouble with layout tables.  However I can't
tell the future and would hate to give up information that could someday
prove to be important.

In principle the screen reader should let me decide whether to display this
extra information.  It probably will, but I probably will have no clue how
to exercise my options.  I'm already on brain overload and still only know
just a small fraction of all the neat things that my screen reader can
do  for me.  That's why I partially agree with David.  If I don't need it,
I sure don't want to be bothered with yet more noise.

This didn't help, did it Alan?  Sorry.

John


At 09:42 PM 2/17/2003 -0500, David Poehlman wrote:
>I see no value for this at all.  It clutters the braille display for one
>thing and Where I have seen it all over the place, some times half a dozen
>times on a page, it is a down right nuisence.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Alan Cantor [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Tuesday, 18 February 2003 4:18
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Web page layout tables
>
>
>In an ideal world, web developers would never use tables to layout pages.
>But we don't live in an ideal world, and web developers do organize web
>pages visually using tables.
>
>I have noticed that Jaws 4.5 does a pretty good job of navigating through
>layout tables. I am curious whether people who rely on screen readers have
>noticed this. Or are layout tables continue to be a bane.
>
>I have been asked to comment on a proposed web standard. The standard
>mandates that layout tables should only use the TABLE, TR, and TD elements;
>and most interestingly, that the summary attribute always be used with
>TABLE, and that it always say two words: "layout table." (Jaws and HPR both
>detect the summary attribute; the current version of Window-Eyes does not.)
>
>Screen reader users: would table attribute summary="layout table" be an
>accessibility enhancement for you?
>
>Alan
>
>
>
>Alan Cantor
>Project Manager
>Strategic e-Government Implementation
>e-Government, OCCS
>416-212-1152
>[log in to unmask]

John Gardner
Professor and Director, Science Access Project
Department of Physics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-6507
tel: (541) 737 3278
FAX: (541) 737 1683
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://dots.physics.orst.edu