Accessible tables in digital documents

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the challenges of making tables accessible for visually impaired users on websites, highlighting limitations of current technologies and proposing solutions to improve spatial information access.

Contribution

It introduces new solutions for creating accessible tables that better accommodate visual and vocal perception differences.

Findings

Current screen readers struggle with 2D spatial information in tables.

Proposed solutions improve accessibility for visually impaired users.

Analysis of existing guidelines reveals gaps in spatial information access.

Abstract

Accessibility of tables on websites for Visually Impaired Persons (VIP) is not optimal with screen readers which are not always effective for the recovery of visual information (2D). Actual Web/Multimedia technologies are not taking in account the difference of the visual perception with respect to the vocal perception which is linear. This paper analyses the difficulties for accessing to spatial information with the existing recommendations for the conception of accessible (for all) websites. Different solutions to facilitate accessible table creation are presented.