Making Tables Accessible

Tables are used on web pages for two reasons. Layout tables arrange your information in an attractively. Data tables present information in a meaningful way.

Users of screen reading software are able to navigate from cell to cell in tables, but cannot tell where they are in the table unless you provide some clues. There are two ways to provide these clues. The scope method allows you to identify header cells for each row or column. It is relatively easy to use. The ID and Headers method requires you to define each table cell which is a header, then go into each data cell in the table and state which headers to use. It is much more time consuming than the scope method, but should be used on complex tables.

Keep your tables simple. Consider breaking complex tables into two or more smaller tables.

Tables also have properties such as caption, which everyone can see, and summary, which is only read by screen reading technology.

There is no easy way to make tables accessible in Front page. You will need to go into HTML view to edit the code. Or, contact the Alternate Media Facilitator who has software which makes tables accessible.

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Page maintained by dspsweb@cuesta.edu. Last modified: 11/06/2003.