- Success Criterion 1.3.1
- Conformance level A
- W3C reference F46
Layout-Only Table Wrongly Coded With Real Header Cells
1.3.1 — Info and Relationships
Scenario
Setting
An online marketplace's seller dashboard
What’s wrong
A table used purely for visual layout contains header cells or a caption — screen readers treat it as a data table and announce meaningless headers.
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
Check a layout-only table (used for visual positioning) in DevTools: if it has th, caption, or summary, a screen reader misreads it as a real data table.
How to fix
Strip th/caption/summary from layout tables (or use CSS layout instead of tables).
<h2>Shipping Address</h2>A real heading element exposes the section structure to assistive tech; a styled div doesn't.
Outcome
On an online marketplace's seller dashboard, this barrier is gone for screen-reader, braille — they reach the same outcome without extra effort.
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)
- Technique Related technique (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
- Tabular Data Placed Inside a Preformatted Text Block