OSCQR – Standard #25
Tables are accompanied by a title and summary description.
Review These Explanations
If you have tabular data that you need to display, you will need to provide a title and summary description in order to guide learners using screen readers through the topic before the screen reader accesses the actual data in the table.
Be sure that the title appears first, the description second, and the table last. The description should include the word “table” so that learners using screen readers will know that a data table will be coming up next in the page sequence.
All data tells a story. You can choose to explain the data itself to your learners, detail why the data is important, ask open ended questions, or summarize each category. Either way, you need to provide an introduction and context to support all learners.
Refresh Your Course with These Ideas
General Suggestions
- As you are creating this content, read it aloud to see if it makes sense in sequence.
- Follow the guidelines for creating an accessible table (see entry #26).
- Write a narrative description of the table and include a link to a downloadable version of the table.
- Listen to how your table appears in a screen reader. Download a free version of JAWS to understand how course content is accessible to the visually impaired student using this tool.