TIP 49

Create tables that transform gracefully

Tables often present problems to users of screen readers irrespective of their purpose. It is important that tables are coded so that they linearise correctly. A great way to check how pages look when linearised is to experiment with the settings under "Page style", especially the "User mode", in the Opera browser. Web designers can unchecked "Tables" and see if their Web pages transform gracefully when they are linearised.

Tables should primarily be used to mark up tabular information although many content developers use tables to lay out pages; this is a contentious issue.

Use Tables Properly

Use tables for data content, not for page layouts. Row and column headers should be identified for these data tables.

Explanation

When tables are used to represent logical relationships among data -- text, preformatted text, images, links, forms, form fields, other tables, etc., that information is called "tabular information" and the tables are called "data tables". The relationships expressed by a table may be rendered visually (usually on a two-dimensional grid), aurally (often preceding cells with header information), or in other formats.

The HTML table model allows authors to arrange data into rows and columns of cells. Table cells may contain two types of information: header information and data. The TH element defines a cell that contains header information. The TD element defines a cell that contains data. This distinction enables user agents to render header and data cells distinctly, even in the absence of style sheets. For example, visual user agents may present header cell text with a bold font. Speech synthesizers may render header information with a distinct voice inflection.

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