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Tables with Header cells in the second column, not the first

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From: Jesse Hausler
Date: May 7, 2012 5:15PM

A colleague and I were playing around with simple tables today. There are header cells for all of the columns with scope="col". For the row headers , the second column of cells are marked as TH scope="row", and not the first column. Pseudo-code below:

<table>
<tr>
<th scope="col">col 1</th>
<th scope="col">col 2</th>
<th scope="col">col 3</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>data1</td>
<th scope="row">row header1</th>
<td>data2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>data3</td>
<th scope="row">row header2</th>
<td>data4</td>
</tr>
</table>

When navigating the table using JAWS, we found that the row headers were only read on data cells to the right of the row heading. For instance, if I am navigated to the cell with text, "data1" and press Ctrl+Alt+5 - I am only being told the heading "Col 1". If I am on the cell with text, "data2" and press that command - I am told my headings are "col 3, row header1".

Any thoughts? We often place our row headers in the second column and place actions in the first column.

Thanks,
Jesse

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Jesse Hausler
Sr. Accessibility Specialist | salesforce.com<http://www.salesforce.com/>;
Tel (415) 536-8902 | Fax (415) 944-1762