Sortable Table Column Mad Libs
September 5, 2020; 0 Comments
Visually and functionally sortable column headers on tables are straightforward (I have a post coming on that soon). However, making them accessible can be a bit frustrating. To clarify, making them accessible to screen readers is frustrating.
There are two critical areas where screen readers fall down here: lack of technology consistency in how sortable columns are announced, and failure to announce when the sort is performed. For this post I am going to focus on the former.
Last month I ran a Twitter poll asking screen reader users to choose the most useful column labeling technique from four options, being careful not to assign parameters.
Screen reader users!
I have a table with column sort controls: cdpn.io/aardrian/debug/NJQNQV
I would like to know which of the first four columns works best for you. You can use this poll, but replies with your browser/SR combo are appreciated (snark too).
- Author column 22.2%
- Title column 44.4%
- Year column 22.2%
- ISBN-13 column 11.1%
Adrian Roselli (@aardrian) August 20, 2020
The responses I got back (email, chats, real life) were more valuable than that highly scientific poll. Users talked about when one option is too verbose, when another is too simple, [...]