When to use tables and how to make cells, rows and captions more accessible.
What are accessible tables
Tables are a great way to display data and information, and when set up properly, they are accessible for your students using screen readers.
You should use tables only to present tabular data, e.g. a rubric, a matrix, or survey data. Unfortunately, tables are often used for ‘non-table’ purposes such as:
- creating a specific page layout, e.g. creating two columns of text in a course site page
- for colour coding items, e.g. colour filled cells being used as traffic lights to report status.
This is very poor accessibility practice.
Tables are not accessible to students using read aloud functions or immersive reader functions without also viewing the text on a screen.
Key considerations for creating accessible tables
Header row
You should always set your table up with a defined header row. This serves two main purposes:
- Screen readers identify the header row and use the text in that row to help students understand each cell of data
- When tables go over a page in a document or PDF, the header row is repeated at the top of the page so your students don’t need to scroll back to the previous page to check the text in the header row
Row breaking
With long tables in a document such as Word or a PDF, you should not have a row break across a page, i.e. the first part of the row content on one page and the remaining content on the following page.
For students using screen readers, split rows cause problems with the order in which the data is read, and for other students, split rows make it much harder to understand the data adding considerable unnecessary cognitive load to the learning process.
Merged cells
It is very common to see cells in tables merged, either horizontally, vertically or both, to make the table more ‘readable’. However, merged cells cause significant problems for students using screen readers.
If the data is complicated enough that you are thinking of using merged cells, present the data in multiple tables instead or find an alternative way to present the information.
Table captions
Give your tables a caption to provide information about the data contained in the table. This prepares students using screen readers for what they are about to read.