From: Daniel DeLorme <dan-ml@...42.com>
Date: 2008-02-15T07:53:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Introducing Waves - Web App Framework

Jeremy McAnally wrote:
>>From a designer's perspective, tables are not accessible since they
> don't retain the semantic structure of the document.  I don't really
> know a whole lot about accessibility and what have you, but I would
> imagine that a screen reader treats tabular structured markup
> differently than layout structured markup (and would, presumably,
> treat a page laid out with tables incorrectly).

Theoretically tables are less accessible, but the fact is that a large 
portion of the web is made of table layouts, so screen readers have 
adapted and learned how to make sense of table layouts. So in practice 
there is no accessibility problem. Of course it might become problematic 
if you have 25 levels of nested tables, but as in everything moderation 
is key.

IMHO making a column layout with a table is a small HTML hack; making a 
column layout with divs is a monstrous CSS hack. I think that, as a 
community, web/graphical designers have not yet realized that monstrous 
hacks are a bad thing rather than a sign of technical prowess.

--
Daniel