Table Accessibility issues

[Don Day <dond@us.ibm.com>]

The OASIS DocBook TC list recently mentioned
some accessibility issues with CALS tables in DocBook (among other elements;
DITA has similar issues).  These issues will also apply to the Exchange
table model that our TC has agreed to use in DITA.  Does anyone know
what the status is of these investigations that the DocBook TC reported
at this URL?

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-tc/200408/msg00001.html

Particularly:

6) Summary attribute for tables

7) Abbreviations of table headers

8) Need way to identify the linear text alternatives to tables that
   are used to provide parallel presentations of columns of wrapped
   text

The most pressing issue, from the DITA
perspective, seems to be a pretty hard WAI requirement to provide "summary"
content that can be mapped into accessible readers in either HTML or PDF.
 The DocBook solution would also be the DITA solution, and vice versa,
if we could agree on a common strategy here.

Regards,
--
Don Day <dond@us.ibm.com>
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
IBM Lead DITA Architect
11501 Burnet Rd., MS 9037D018, Austin TX 78758
Ph. 512-838-8550   (T/L 678-8550)

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
        --T.S. Eliot