SC1-3-1-tables-layout

This test case belongs to 1.3.1 Info and Relationships

Description

This test checks that tables used for layout purposes do not contain tabular data or markup.

Background

• G140: Separating information and structure from presentation to enable different presentations | Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• H39: Using caption elements to associate data table captions with data tables | Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• H51: Using table markup to present tabular information | Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• H73: Using the summary attribute of the table element to give an overview of data tables | Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• F46: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 due to using th elements, caption elements, or non-empty summary attributes in layout tables | Techniques for WCAG
• F91: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 for not correctly marking up table headers | Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• F92: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 due to the use of role presentation on content which conveys semantic information | Techniques for WCAG 2.0

Assumptions

Tables that have no tabular mark-up are interpretted by assistive technologies as layout tables. According to WCAG this includes:

• No header cells: that is

  <th>

  cels, or

  <td>

  cells with ARIA roles rowheader and columnheader.
• No

  <caption>

  element.
• No (or empty) summary attribute.
• No scope or header attributes on table cells.
• Tables with single column or row, or tables with less than two rows containing two valid datacells are automatically marked as layout tables by assistive technologies. A cell is considered valid
  • if its size can be obtained and is between 200 and 16000 pixels, or
  • if its size can't be obtained and it contains text (Cells only containing graphics are not considered valid).

Test properties

Test procedure

Selector

Select all tables on the page marked as presentational (using role="presentation" on the table element. In addition, select tables with all of the following characteristics (see conditions for layout tables listed above):

• Tables with no designated header cells (

  <th>

  cells or

  <td>

  cells with ARIA roles rowheader and columnheader.
• No

  <caption>

  tag
• No (or empty) summary attribute

Step 1 - Check if actual data tables have wrongly been marked as presentational using ARIA

for each table with role="presentation". Check if table contains

• header cels
• a caption element or or summary attribute
• a cell with a scope or headers attribute

If yes,

else continue with #Step 2

step 2

Check if any <td> cell has a headers attribute or a scope attribute. If yes,

else continue with #Step 3

step 3

For each remaining table that matches the selector, ask user to confirm that the table is not a data table.

if yes

else