JAWS does not seem to be able to identify a data table

Question

We have a data table in a page and we want screen reader to read that as table. NVDA reads it as a data table by default. But JAWS does not seem to be able to identify the table element and reads the text from left to right row by row without indicating it is a table. I tried adding role="grid" and it did not work. I am wondering if I miss something.

The browser is IE11 and JAWS is 17.0.2727

<table tabindex="0" role="grid">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Date</th>
      <th>Time</th>
      <th aria-hidden="true"></th>
      <th>Rate</th>
      <th>Volume</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>12/19/16</td>
      <td>
        <span>10:50:09</span> - <span>12/19/16</span> <span>11:05:09</span>
      </td>
      <td aria-hidden="true"></td>
      <td>
        <span>54</span><span>mL/hr</span>
      </td>
      <td>
        <span>13.5</span><span>mL</span>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td></td>
      <td>
          <span>11:05:09</span> - <span>12/19/16</span><span>11:20:09</span>
      </td>
      <td aria-hidden="true"></td>
      <td>
        <span>48</span><span>mL/hr</span>
      </td>
      <td>
          <span>12</span><span>mL</span>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Can you please provide some code so we can test and attempt to reproduce your issue? Also, what version of JAWS are you using? What browser are you having this issue on? — Skerrvy, Jul 19 '17 at 19:01
*Questions seeking debugging help ("why isn't this code working?") must include the desired behavior, a specific problem or error and the shortest code necessary to reproduce it in the question itself. Questions without a clear problem statement are not useful to other readers. See: How to create a [mcve].* — BSMP, Jul 20 '17 at 00:11

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 19 '17 at 20:50

for a datatable:

a caption th row header and column header cell Scope or header id attribute to associate cells with the headers in tables

Example:

<table>
   <caption>City proper and Metropole area of largest cities in the world</caption>
   <tr>
      <td>&nbsp;</td>
      <th scope="col">Shanghai</th>
      <th scope="col">Karachi</th>
      <th scope="col">Beijing</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
      <th scope="row">City proper</th>
      <td>24,256,800</td>
      <td>23,500,000</td>
      <td>21,516,000</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
      <th scope="row">Metropole area</th>
      <td>34,750,000</td>
      <td>25,100,000</td>
      <td>24,900,000</td>
   </tr>
</table>

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 08 '21 at 15:00

I have the same issue, that JAWS 2019 is not allowing Cursor navigation in the table cells. Especially cursor up/down in the same column is one of the accessibilty test cases that fails here.

I assume this has something to do with the <thead> and <tbody> elements not expected by the commonly used JAWS table navigation. Only option available is to use TAB/Shift+TAB to step through each cell in a row until the next/previous row can be accessed.

JAWS does not seem to be able to identify a data table

2 Answers2