Tables

A sighted individual can see a table, and make sense of the info within by visually scanning. If you code tables properly, someone who is blind or low-vision using a screen reader will also be able to scan through the table and understand it auditorily.

Main Considerations

• Screen readers convert content on a page to sound, which is a time-based medium.
• There are inherent difficulties converting a 2-D table to the 1-D medium of sound. Tables are two-dimensional data structures made up of rows and columns.
• When working with data tables, ensuring that cells intended to be headers are coded as such will ensure a screen reader can scan the table with context.
• When created properly, a screen reader will read corresponding header cell text before reading the cell data contents. 
• Splitting or merging cells makes tables more difficult to understand auditorily and therefore less accessible. The simple answer is to avoid this by ensuring the same number of column and row cells.