WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: SCOPE

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Oct 21, 2024 9:31AM

At WebAIM we recently conducted testing on a wide variety of tables to answer this precise question. For basic tables most browser and screen readers properly assume the correct header scope. However, in cases where the top left cell is a row header, where a table has only row headers (no column headers), or when spanned header cells are present, implementation of the scope attribute provides a much more accessible experience in several cases. A more notable finding is that table accessibility support is still quite poor, even when scope is properly implemented.

The test cases are at https://webaim.org/temp/tabletest.htm

The test results for VoiceOver, VoiceOver Mobile, and NVDA are at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QNjleey20PzIB9s814uPQHQFzq9c25UkPJl7K_rzvVQ/edit?usp=sharing The highlighted cells are those in which scope is properly implemented, but the support is not good.

In short, we still recommend the scope attribute because it has positive accessibility benefits, though in some cases tables are accessible regardless, and in some other cases the tables are inaccessible regardless.

Jared Smith