WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Using Tables

for

From: Ted
Date: Feb 12, 2012 12:03PM

The HTML5 spec doesn't include a summary attribute: instead it recommends
adding summary information in the main body of a document for all to see.

Authors are advised to add summaries for complex tables, and specifically
that they might describe trends and patterns in the data, how it's sorted
etc, as well as the structure of the table.

As this kind of information is often obvious to sighted readers but can take
a lot of time and effort to get a feel for if you can only read a table in a
linear manner as with a screen reader, I think there is a strong case for
retaining the summary attribute. However, in other cases I can see that a
well constructed summary could be useful to all readers.

As you can probably tell, I'm a strong advocate of table summaries. Just
because they are often poorly authored isn't a reason not to use them - it's
an argument for teaching people how to write them properly.

Ted Page
Director, PWS Ltd