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Document table summaries

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From: Claire Forbes
Date: Oct 25, 2024 5:31AM

Good morning, everyone, and happy Friday!
I'm getting some push back on table summaries in documents - the checklists I utilize are adapted from HHS (https://www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/accessibility-checklists/index.html) and have summaries as a required item under WCAG 1.3.1. Table summaries is also an item that Adobe Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker will flag if it's missing.

https://ictbaseline.access-board.gov/alldocsbaselines.html - Section 12: Tables references table summaries and that they're not permitted for layout tables, "When <table> elements are used for layout purposes, data table structure elements such as row/column headers, captions, or table summaries are not permitted." So to me this reads that layout tables shouldn't have a table summary (which makes sense because layout tables aren't supposed to even be tagged as a table), but a data table should have a summary.

However, I'm being told that summaries are no longer a required item for Section 508 accessibility - anyone have insight or an opinion on this matter?

Thank you,
Claire Forbes
Section 508 Specialist