WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Problem with JAWS Table Navigation?

for

From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Dec 3, 2009 12:48PM

Don Mauck wrote:

Whether they be data or layout tables, announcing headers will always be crucial. I just can't think of any good reason that we should ever have layout tables.

Mike replies:

Whether we like them or not they are out there and will be for the foreseeable future. Many web based collaboration, content management, and database application platforms are based on table layouts, for example Oracle's PeopleSoft, and Microsoft's SharePoint. Some of these platforms severely limit the ability of the developer or the designer to control the structure of the generated html. The two examples above have done quite a bit to improve accessibility in their more recent releases but the table layouts are still there. From the standpoint of the screen reader user, if data tables and layout tables are coded correctly, and interpreted correctly by the screen reader, the use of a layout table does not impact accessibility. That being said, if I have control over layout I will use CSS and save the tables for the data.

On the flip side of the everything goes in a table database application system is the nothing goes in a table system like Crystal Reports. All of the "table cells" are divs and they are stacked up like blocks. This presents a far more serious problem for screen reader users, particularly if the blocks form a complex table. The best option with this output is usually to export the output to Excel and then clean it up.

Mike Moore
(512) 424-4159