Accessible Tables for data
With all the talk about "table-less web design" and CSS layouts you might be forgiven for thinking that the HTML table is well and truly dead, never to be used again by any reputable web designer. However, this is not the case. While tables for layout are to be avoided if at all possible in the interests of accessibility and forwards-compatibility, tables can and should still be used for their original purpose - that is to display tabular data.
In this self-contained tutorial we will look at how to create accessible tables that comply with the recommendations of the W3C, we will also learn how to use CSS to make our accessible tables look attractive and easy to read in a web browser.
Overview
Table of Content:
- What is tabular data?
- How can we make tables accessible?
- Setting up Dreamweaver MX for creating accessible tables
- Creating a table
- Meeting the Web Accessibility checkpoints
- 5.1 For data tables, identify row and column headers. [Priority 1]
- 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]
- 5.5 Provide summaries for tables. [Priority 3]
- 5.6 Provide abbreviations for header labels. [Priority 3]
- Using CSS to style data tables
- Conclusion
Rachel Andrew is a trained dancer and singer, whose CV lists jobs as diverse as company choreographer for a physical theatre company to chargehand carpenter for “The Mousetrap” at St. Martin’s Theatre in London’s West End. After leaving the theatre when pregnant with her daughter, Rachel started to design sites mainly out of curiosity into how it worked. It didn’t take too long for her to figure out that her skills lay in development as opposed to design and these days she tends to leave the design to designers so she can concentrate on writing code, dismantling computers and installing Linux on anything that stays still long enough.
Rachel has worked in the industry as a webmaster, technical project manager and senior web developer but in September 2001 set up her own company ‘edgeofmyseat.com’, which provides complete web solutions and outsourced development services for design agencies and Internet start-ups who do not have in-house web developers.
As well as managing and doing much of the development on projects for edgofmyseat.com Rachel is a published author and worked as a co-author on the following titles for Glasshaus:
Dynamic Dreamweaver MX ISBN:1904151108
Fundmental Web Design and development Skills: ISBN:1904151175
Dreamweaver MX Design Projects: ISBN:1904151272
Rachel is also a member of the Web Standards Project serving on The Dreamweaver Task Force.
In her spare time Rachel studies for ‘fun’ with the Open University, does family and local history research and spends time with her 5 year old daughter and her other half, Drew McLellan.
See All Postings From Rachel Andrew >>
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