How to Fix Table Accessibility in Rise 360

Overview

A sighted learner scans a table and instantly understands which column heading applies to which cell. A screen reader can't do that automatically, it needs the header row explicitly marked as headers, not just cells that happen to look bold or sit at the top. Without that, a screen reader reads the numbers in order with no indication of what any of them actually represent.

Step-by-step instructions

1. 1

   Find the table block in your lesson.

2. 2

   Confirm the top row (or leftmost column, if that's where your labels are) is genuinely set as a header row, not just styled to look like one.

3. 3

   Check that every header cell has real, descriptive text, not blank or placeholder content.

4. 4

   If your table currently exists only as a pasted-in image, rebuild it as a real table block instead, an image of a table can't be read as structured data no matter what alt text is added.

5. 5

   Keep the table as simple as you reasonably can, merged cells and deeply nested headers are hard for a screen reader to describe clearly even when correctly marked up.

Screenshots

Tips

• If a table only needs to convey one or two facts, consider whether a sentence would communicate it more clearly than a table at all.
• Keep column headers short and specific, a header that wraps across two lines is harder to follow when read aloud.
• Test it yourself: turn on a screen reader and listen to the table read aloud, if you can't follow what each number means by ear alone, a learner won't either.

Common mistakes

• A table pasted in as an image, with no real table structure behind it at all.
• A header row that's bold and centered to look like a heading, but isn't actually marked as one.
• Overly complex tables with merged cells that are hard to describe in a linear, read-aloud order.

Why it matters

Without marked headers, a screen reader just reads cell contents in order, with no way to say which row or column they're in.