6 Things to Check Before You Share a Table with Students

Imagine you’ve created a table showing your weekly course schedule: dates in the first column, readings in the second, and assignments in the third. It looks organized and easy to scan. But a student using a screen reader may encounter those cells one after another without the visual relationships that make the table meaningful. A few small design choices can make the difference between a table that simply looks organized and one that students can actually navigate and understand.

Tables are a natural way to organize information -- schedules, grade breakdowns, comparison charts, data sets. They’re also one of the most common accessibility problems in course content and documents. 

1. Use Tables for Data, Not Layout

The most important rule for accessible tables: use them only to organize data with a clear relationship between rows and columns. 

• Use tables for: Schedules, grade scales, comparison charts, data sets, and contact information with categories.

• Avoid tables for: Multi-column text layouts, image placement, and decorative formatting.

• In Blackboard: Use the built-in column layout options in Ultra Documents for visual organization rather than inserting a table, or using a screenshot image that would require a description itself.

Tables used for visual layout in documents and websites -- to position images side by side, to create columns of text, or to format a page -- create serious problems for screen readers, which try to read each cell in sequence without any visual context.

2. Always Include a Header Row

A header row tells screen readers -- and all readers -- what each column contains. Without it, a student using a screen reader hears a string of data values with no way to know what they represent. This is especially critical when a table has many columns.

• In Word: Select your top row → right-click → Table Properties → Row tab → check “Repeat as header row at the top of each page.” Then go to the Table Design tab and check “Header Row.”

• In Google Docs: Click in the top row → Format → Table → Table properties → enable “Header rows.”

• In Blackboard: When inserting a table, check the “Header column” or “Header row” option in the table properties dialog.

3. Keep Your Structure Simple

Complex table structures -- merged cells, split cells, nested tables, or cells that span multiple rows and columns -- are difficult for screen readers to interpret correctly. When in doubt, simpler is better.

• Avoid merging cells across rows or columns when possible. If you need to show a grouping, use a heading above the table instead.

• Avoid nested tables (a table inside a table cell).

• If your table requires a complex structure to make sense, consider whether the data can be presented differently -- for example, as a list, a paragraph, or broken into multiple simpler tables.

4. Add a Title or Caption Above Your Table

Every table should have a brief title or caption that tells students what the table contains before they encounter it. Screen reader users often navigate by jumping between tables, and a table title helps them decide whether to engage with the content.

• In Word: Click on the table → References → Insert Caption, or simply type a descriptive heading above the table using Heading 3 style.

• In Google Docs: Type a descriptive label above the table and apply a heading style.

• In Blackboard: Add a line of text above the table in your content editor describing what it contains.

A title like “Grade Scale for HIST 301” or “Weekly Office Hours by Instructor” makes the table immediately useful to every student.

5. Check Your Tables with the Accessibility Checker

Before uploading a Word document or PowerPoint with tables, run the built-in Accessibility Checker to catch common table structure problems.

• In Word: Review → Check Accessibility. Look for warnings about missing header rows or tables used for layout.

• In PowerPoint: Same path. Tables in presentations are frequently missing header row markup.

• In Blackboard: Tables created in the rich text editor should not require a separate accessibility check if you use the header row option when you build the table.

6. Ask Whether You Need a Table at All

Before you spend time making a table accessible, ask whether a table is really the best way to present the information. Tables work best when readers need to understand relationships between rows and columns. If those relationships aren't important, another format may be simpler and easier for everyone to navigate.

• Try a list when you're presenting a sequence, set of resources, or collection of items.

• Use headings and paragraphs when you're organizing related sections of information.

• Break a complex table into smaller tables when students don't need to compare all of the information at once.

• Keep the table when the relationship between rows and columns is important to understanding the information.

The goal isn't to eliminate tables. It's to choose the format that communicates the information most clearly with the least unnecessary complexity.

Accessible information starts with choosing the right structure. When a table is the best choice, clear headers, simple organization, and a logical reading order help every student understand the relationships in the data. And when a list, paragraph, or other format communicates the information more clearly, choosing not to use a table can be an accessibility improvement, too.

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