Problem:

Tables cause problems for screen reading software (used by people who are blind) since screen readers tend to read across the screen in a way that runs all of the text on a line together. If an entry in a cell occupies more that one line the first line of each cell would be read, then the second etc.

Solution strategies in the future

It has been proposed that the table construct will contain two attributes that will help people using screen readers access information in tables. These are the AXES and AXIS attributes that would be associated with each cell in the table. Thus for each entry in the table the row and column information as well as the cell's data contents would be available to the screen reader.

Solutions today

No good solutions exist at this time. If you can, avoid using TABLE structures. You could also present the data on an alternate text-only page without tables. Work is in progess on this problem.

Please send comments and suggestions to: web-team@trace.wisc.edu