Feature Request For WCAG 2.0 / Accessibility

[Ken Lassesen]

Accessibility is an Art, especially with the multitude of browsers out there.

I would like to see the following properties added to the Grid in the released version (so I don't have to do it myself -- I am lazy :-) )

<telerik:GridBoundColumn 

        DataField="LastModified" 

        SortExpression="LastModified" 

UniqueName="LastChangedHeader" 

        Visible="True"

HeaderText="Date Last Changed"

        HeaderTooltip="This column shows the date that this record was last modified"

        HeaderAbbr="Changed On"

        ColumnAxis="false"

        RowAxis="true"

>

</telerik:GridBoundColumn>

On ItemCreate allow the setting of "headers" see http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/ 5.1.2

You may wish to also review www.usability.com.au/resources/tables.cfm  for other potential additions.

I have done inheritance on the Asp:GridView and implemented all of the above -- so I know that it can be implemented

Thanks!

Ken Lassesen

ex-Dr.GUI on MSDN

[Vlad]

Hi Ken,

Great suggestion!

We will implement HeaderTooltip and HeaderAbbr immediately however I'm not sure what is hidden behind ColumnAxis="false" and RowAxis="true". According to the standard axis is a character data used to categorize cells - we can provide HeaderAxis string property where you can set desired text.

Greetings,
Vlad
the Telerik team

Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.

[Ken Lassesen]

You are correct per HeaderAxis. 
See http://bellevuecollege.edu/webpublishing/tips/accessibility/tables.asp for what I was thinking of.

The  HeaderId on a column should be clean to be implement (HeaderId could use UniqueName).  The row level header should likely be coming from a DataField, i.e. HeadersDataField (or CellHeadersDataField ?), as well as TooltipDataField to allow the explicit setting of different tooltips on cells.

<telerik:GridBoundColumn 

        DataField="LastModified" 

        SortExpression="LastModified" 

UniqueName="LastChangedHeader" 

        Visible="True"

HeaderText="Date Last Changed"

        HeaderTooltip="This column shows the date that this record was last modified"

        HeaderAbbr="Changed On"

        HeaderId="changed"

        HeadersDataField="LastModifiedHeaders"
        TooltipDataField="LastModifiedToolTip"

>

Producing something like
<table>
    <tr>
        <th id="changed" title="This column shows the date that this record was last modified">Changed On</th>
        <th>.....</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td headers="<%=LastModifiedHeaders%>" title="<%=LastModifiedToolTip %>"><%=LastModifiedToolTip %></td>
        <td headers="changed location quarter" title="This data has been archived">2008-12-12</td>

[pucsoftware]

We have just recently been hit hard for not having strong accessibility usage on our websites. I've been using Telerik for some time now and have built really nice applications with all the components. Now, we may to go back and dumb down a lot of these interfaces because of usability requirements. We have in use the RadGrid, RadMenu, RadPanelBar, RadSlider, RadEditor, RadEverything... We're left with the choice that if it can't be made accessible we have to dump it. Anything Telerik can do to aid in accessibilty conformity would be immensely helpful. Sorry, did I mention I need this by yesterday!

[Ken Lassesen]

PucSoftware,
     There are a ton of tools for FireFox that checks for accessibility issues with a website. A lot of the stuff is book-keeping, the classic one is the use of Label (that .Net does not implement).  I have done accessibility for a shipping educational software product and would suggest that you help Telerik by doing the following:

• Create a page for each Rad control,
• Run it thru ALL of the FireFox accessiblity tools (some skins may NOT be accessibllity compliant, due to color contrast issues)
• Post suggestions here, one control by one control
• If you post a real world URL, I will review the page AND the suggestions...

BE AWARE THAT THEY ARE DIVERGENT OPINIONS, so you must make some judgement calls.

Accessiblity is something that I care much about (and unlike you, I have time before needing to use the Rad control in my next projects ...)  

One SWEET control that I would suggest is a glossaryTextbox.  It is like a regular textbox EXCEPT, you supply it with a list of the glossary terms and every match in the text (or html) is hyperlinked to a definition that is a floating div. i.e. IDictionary<string,string> Glossary. with 2nd item supporting HTML.

Ken Lassesen

 

[Ivo]

Hi,

We have information on Accessibility/Section 508 on our website at:
http://www.telerik.com/products/aspnet-ajax/resources/accessibility-support.aspx

There are also several other control-specific resources on the website which are very helpful:
http://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/Grid/Examples/GeneralFeatures/Section508/DefaultCS.aspx

http://blogs.telerik.com/TervelPeykov/Posts/08-07-16/Accessibility_and_RadEditor.aspx

http://blogs.telerik.com/atanaskorchev/posts/08-10-02/RadMenu_for_ASP_NET_Ajax_-_Working_with_disabled_JavaScript.aspx

All the best,
Ivo
the Telerik team

Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.

[pucsoftware]

Thanks for the replies and information. I will use this as I make the sites more compliant. I mainly wanted to give my support for keeping an emphasis on accessibility in Telerik components. Telerik already maintain a good level of support for accessibility. But more is always better. The grid and the splitter seemed to have more needs than others. I'm finding some ways to help meet the standards, though. Thanks again for the help and keep up the good work!