- Success Criterion 1.3.1
- Conformance level A
Multiple Data Tables With No Captions to Tell Them Apart
1.3.1 — Info and Relationships
Scenario
Setting
A survey tool's question builder
What’s wrong
Multiple data tables on a page with no caption or accessible name to distinguish them where identification is needed.
Example
<div class="heading">Shipping Address</div>Why it matters
Screen-reader, braille, and reading-tool users who depend on coded structure rather than visual layout.
How to test
Navigate to a data table with a screen reader: it should announce a caption/name identifying its content — an unlabeled table (or one of several unlabeled tables) fails.
How to fix
Give each table a caption (or aria-label) naming what it contains.
<h2>Shipping Address</h2>A real heading element exposes the section structure to assistive tech; a styled div doesn't.
Outcome
On a survey tool's question builder, this barrier is gone for screen-reader, braille — they no longer have to work around this.
Who is affected
Screen-reader, braille, and reading-tool users who depend on coded structure rather than visual layout.
Learn more
- Understanding Understanding document (opens in a new tab)
Related scenarios
- Text Styled to Look Like a Heading Instead of Coded as One
- Text Columns Faked With Spaces Instead of Real Table Markup
- Table Layout Faked With Spaces Instead of Real Table Code
- Clickable Div Acting as a Link Button With No Real Role
- Structural HTML Tags Used Purely for Visual Styling
- Layout-Only Table Wrongly Coded With Real Header Cells