I find myself agreeing with John on this one.
As screenreaders become more and more powerful and adaptable, as we have all
dreampt for years they would, we find ourselves spending more and more time
manipulating the adaptive tech rather than getting on and processing
information. I often have to re configure my set-up according to whether I
am browsing for pleasure or analysing for work, and even then there's a
whole raft of varying levels within those categories. Maybe it's time we had
a way of setting a preferences profile for our assistive technology in
accordance with what we are going to be doing, and I mean something more
powerful and quicker to configure than the verbosity options that jaws for
example has.

but back to the original question. theoreticly being told that a table is
for summary layout only is useful, it means that we can ignore infrmation
relating to the table, what summary is effectively telling us is that it
isn't important where this information appears in relation to anything else
on the page. like david though I find hearing or feeling this repeated over
and over again is time wasting and frustrating.

in a bizzarre turn around layout tables do have their purpose though, as I
mentioned esarlier screen readers are becoming more powerful and this is
particularly so in the case of html where we can navigate by object and
object levels. With the functionality in jaws to jump to the start and end
of tables and from one table to the next or previous, tables have become
another step in the navigation chain.

Adrian Higginbotham,
Learning Technology Adviser (disability)
Email [log in to unmask]
tel: 0161-2952555
ODL,
Technology House,
Lissadel Street, Salford M6 6AP.

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Gardner" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 6:06 AM
Subject: Re: Web page layout tables


> 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
>