Data Table Rules

HTML Markup Details

table element

The table element is the container for tabular data markup.

summary attribute

The summary attribute, defined in table element, should describe the content of the table or the conclusion the author intends to convey through the data in the table.

h2 and other heading elements

Heading elements should give a data table a unique title to aid in navigation to the table and to differentiate table markup used for layout from data table markup.

th and td elements

The th element represents header cells and the td element data cells.

id attribute

The id attribute, defined for th elements, should uniquely identify each header cell. This id is used in conjunction with the headers attribute of td elements to indicate headers for a particular data cell.

headers attribute

The headers attribute, defined for td elements, should point to the id of th elements that are the header cells for the data cell.

Definitions

Data Table

contains at least 2 rows and columns.

includes a caption, thead or th element; or at least one element contains a scope or headers attribute.

Complex Data Table

satisfies all the requirements of data table detecton.

contains a td or th element that contains at least one rowspan or colspan attribute.

contains either:

• more than one th element in a row that also includes td elements,
• more than one row in a thead element,
• or more than two rows that contain only th elements.

contains at least one headers attribute that contains more than two idrefs.

Accessibility Evaluation Rules

Data Table Evaluation Rules

no.	FAE 2007	FAE 2008	Description
1	Pass/Fail	Pass/Fail	Data tables must use th elements for header cells for the first cell in all the columns or rows.
2	N/A	Pass/Fail	Data tables must use summary attribute to describe the content of the table or conclusions the author intends to convey through the data in the table.
3	N/A	Pass/Fail	If there is more than one data table on a web page, the summary attribute content of the data tables must be unique within the web page.
4	N/A	Pass/Fail	For complex data tables, the th elements must have id attributes that are unique within the web page, and the td elements must have headers attributes that reference id attributes of associated th elements.

FAE Rule Implemetation

FAE 2007

The Illinois Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE) currently implements FAE 2007 rules.

The Illinois Firefox Accessibility Extension currently implements these rules.

FAE 2008

The FAE 2008 rules are designed to optimize the rules for implementation of Section 508, W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Illinois Information technology Accessibility Act requirements and are based on the requirements of these standards and experience with the problems of FAE 2007.

The Illinois Firefox Accessibility Extension currently implements some of these rules.