Section 4.3: Relevant accessibility standards and guidelines
All 3 of the major accessibility standards and guidelines refer to issues that relate to tables. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 documents make specific note that not all tables need summaries, especially layout tables.
Below you will find a list of various guidelines and standards to think about when making developing accessible data tables.
Section 508
- (g) Row and column headers shall be identified for data tables.
- (h) Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
Guideline 5. Create tables that transform gracefully.
- Checkpoint 5.1. For data tables, identify row and column headers. [Priority 1]
- Checkpoint 5.2. For data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use markup to associate data cells and header cells. [Priority 1]
- Checkpoint 5.3. Do not use tables for layout unless the table makes sense when linearized. Otherwise, if the table does not make sense, provide an alternative equivalent (which may be a linearized version). [Priority 2]
- Checkpoint 5.4. If a table is used for layout, do not use any structural markup for the purpose of visual formatting. [Priority 2]
- Checkpoint 5.5. Provide summaries for tables. [Priority 3]
- Checkpoint 5.6. Provide abbreviations for header labels. [Priority 3]
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (Working Draft, 27 April 2006)
Guideline 1.3 ensure that information and structure can be separated from presentation
- Success Criterion 1.3.1: Information and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined, and notification of changes to these is available to user agents, including assistive technologies. (Level 1)
The HTML Techniques associated with this success criterion include:- Using table markup to present tabular information
- Using caption elements to associate data table captions with data tables
- Using the summary attribute of the table element to give an overview of data tables
- Using the scope attribute to associate header cells and data cells in data tables
- Using id and headers attributes to associate data cells with header cells in data tables
- Success Criterion 1.3.3: When the sequence of the content affects its meaning, that sequence can be programmatically determined. [Level 1]
This can apply to layout tables and their ability to linearize correctly.
