Author: Dennis

Podcast #36: Complex Data Tables

Post author By Dennis
Post date December 3, 2006
3 Comments on Podcast #36: Complex Data Tables

In addition to a nice caption tag and summary attribute, you may know that a data table requires table header cells (TH) for the header rows and/or columns, and a scope attribute (see Web Axe episode 3, Data Tables). But what is there is more than one row of headers? This is called a complex table, and a different type of coding should be used.

Download Web Axe Episode 36 (Complex Data Tables)

A complex table:

can have any number of rows as a set of headers and/or the first column as a set of headers
can contain data rows in between the header rows
uses the id and headers attributes

Links:

The headers and ID attributes (WebAIM)
Identifying rows and column information (W3C WCAG Techniques 5.1.2)

Sample code (modified from WebAIM):



Shelly's Daughters




Name

Age

Birthday



by birth

Jackie

5

April 5



Beth

8

January 14



by marriage

Jenny

12

Feb 12

Shelly's Daughters
	Name	Age	Birthday
by birth	Jackie	5	April 5
Beth	8	January 14
by marriage	Jenny	12	Feb 12

stats

Retail sites fail accessibility test

Post author By Dennis
Post date November 30, 2006
No Comments on Retail sites fail accessibility test

An article from the BBC “Retail websites fail access test” discusses the lack on web accessibility in the largest retail web sites in the United Kingdom.

It was found that 30 of the UK’s most important retail web sites had significant accessibility issues. Here are some findings:

Only 3 terms and conditions pages achieved basic accessibility standards
23 of the 30 web sites used search and navigational features that would not work without Javascript
29 of the 30 web sites do not use shortcut links to enable people to navigate the page without using a mouse

gov guidelines

Guidelines Updated for Swedish Public Web Sites

Post author By Dennis
Post date November 30, 2006
No Comments on Guidelines Updated for Swedish Public Web Sites

The Swedish Administrative Development Agency has released an updated version of the guidelines for Swedish public sector web sites. The document is used by public organizations when procuring new web sites as well as by developers as an aid in the development process.

A summary of the guidelines in English is due in early 2007. In the meantime, check out these blogs for an overview:

Guidelines for Swedish public sector websites updated (456 Berea St.)
New Version of Guidelines for Swedish Public Sector Web Sites (Standards Schmandards)

conference webaim

Presentation on Standards-Driven Web Accessibility

Post author By Dennis
Post date November 25, 2006
3 Comments on Presentation on Standards-Driven Web Accessibility

Jared Smith from WebAIM recently spoke at the Refresh06 conference in Orlando, Florida. The slides for his presentation User-center, Standards-driven Web Accessibility are available in Acrobat and HTML formats. Thanks to Jared for providing.

conference event podcast usability

Podcast #35: Usability and Accessibility Conference

Post author By Dennis
Post date November 21, 2006
No Comments on Podcast #35: Usability and Accessibility Conference

Ross and I attended the Fourth Annual Usability and Accessibility Event on World Usability Day, November 14, at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. This podcast covers the day’s events with our comments and conversations with various attendees. It’s a lot of fun!

Download Web Axe Episode 35 (Usability and Accessibility Conference)

Some folks I met represented the following organizations: