Disabled persons usually use alternative browsers such as; Braille browsers, text browsers, speech output browsers and screen readers. Unfortunately using alternate browsing methods on table based websites are inconvenient to operate.

The tables look differently on how the source code is written.
Figure 1.1 shows how the browser is written and how the table finally looks like:

Figure 1.1
Cell1 Cell2

The appearance of the source code:
<table> Beginning of table
<tr> Row1
<td> Cell1</td>
<td> Cell2</td>
</tr>
<tr> Row2
<td> Cell3</td>
<td> Cell4</td>
</tr>
</table> End of of table

The users see what the source course reads. The text browsers, screen readers and speech output browsers scan the source code line by line before it is eventually shown to the user. The cells such as Cell1, Cell2, Cell3 and Cell4 have to be linear, they have to be logical for the information to be easily retrieved, or else it will be difficult for the disabled users to operate them. When they are not linear, errors occur during navigation.

The cause of the break up of the logical structure of the page is when the content layout uses tables within tables or table cells; the effect is proven when alternative browsers have difficulties in showing the content properly.

Layout: CSS Based

Using CSS layouts are cumbersome and can ask you for a lot of investment in time for web designers but the advantages of applying the program are encouraging. Cascading Style Sheets or commonly known as CSS are utilized for text formatting, it is also used by developers for positioning and layouts.

To increase accessibility on different browsers it is wise for the web designers to shift from tables to CSS so the website can be easily retrieved by anybody.

It’s a pity for disabled users to keep on trying to locate the website spending considerable time and effort and then later on being frustrated with a dysfunctional website caused by using tables instead of a CSS.

It is not easy for web designers to shift from table to CSS at the start, because it will require time investment and study before eventually mastering CSS, but it will save a lot of frustration in the future because most browsers are friendly to websites using CSS. It is also user friendly for many researchers, businessmen, teachers, students and musician navigators, name it and you have them.

Tags: Problems on Accessibility and Tables