Use of Scope for Simple Data Tables Is Unnecessary

[stevefaulkner]

I have done some testing and found that contrary to the advice in the table tutorials the use of scope on simple data tables is unecessary.

• https://www.24a11y.com/2018/tables-and-beers/
• https://codepen.io/stevef/post/tables-tequila-and-beer

Suggest the WAI advice should be revisited as we should not be asking developers to add code that has no effect.

[yatil]

Hi @stevefaulkner,

indeed the tutorial does not advice to use scope attribute with tables that have only one header (for rows or columns). https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/tables/one-header/

I think the issues mostly stemmed from really old JAWS (2012?) if I recall correctly – I guess we can take your research and edit our tutorial. Let me know if the following course of action would be OK for you:

• [ ] Remove Example 3: Table with ambiguous data
• [ ] Remove Note in Example 1: Table with header cells in the top row only

I think we agree that the tables on this page should have row/col set: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/tables/two-headers/

Please let me know if you agree, it looks like I have a small opportunity of getting this worked in over the next few weeks. 🤞

[yatil]

@stevefaulkner Would you mind to acknowledge if the changes outlined above address your concerns?

[mrazzari]

Hi @yatil, looking at Steve's codepen the fix would also include Two headers, Example 1, by removing the 2nd paragraph and all references to scope in the code snippet.

The Chrome bug referenced in the codepen was fixed in Chrome 74 (April 2019).

[yatil]

Thanks, @mrazzari. Unfortunately, I’m not involved with this project anymore. I’m sure the current maintainer will take care of this eventually.