Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial

Cells on multiple rows

Hi, are the cells spanned on multiple rows accessible? E.g., DC Extended Universe#Films: the correct way is to split the "Zack Snyder" cell into two cells with the same date or are they just fine as they are? Redjedi23 (talk) 14:43, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I state that because if I try to read the Batman v Superman row, the Apple VoiceOver skips the director's name Redjedi23 (talk) 15:41, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

They're fine as they are. VoiceOver isn't that good with this kind of thing. Graham87 (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Graham87 I get the same result with NVDA Redjedi23 (talk) 16:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Redjedi23: Same, but also those sorts of tables aren't meant to be read linearly ... they're supposed to be read with table navigation commands (control+alt+arrows in NVDA's case), which works as expected. Graham87 (talk) 17:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

But in this way the header column loses its meaning, right? Redjedi23 (talk) 18:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Not really. Screen reader users will just get used to having a blank cell (with information hopefully about the row spans) and things will be fine. Graham87 (talk) 18:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Colgroups and rowgroups

In Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial#Complex tables it says "To clearly define relationships and avoid accessibility issues, use ! scope="colgroup" colspan="2" | when a column header spans two columns and ! scope="rowgroup" rowspan="2" | when a row header spans two rows..." Can a combination of those be used when a column spans multiple rows scope="rowgroup" colspan="2" and when a row spans multiple columns scope="colgroup" rowspan="2" in complex tables? Qwerty284651 (talk) 12:00, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Better describe the problem of missing captions for screen reader users (SRUs)?

Do we need to expand on the issue of missing captions? I ask because so many data tables do not have a caption, suggesting that editors are unaware of the problems caused where one is missing. For example, a SRU can call up a list of tables on a page, each labelled by their caption. Where the caption is missing, the table is announced along the lines of "6 columns, 20 rows" by VoiceOver. I suspect that other software says something similar. Unless the user is a mind-reader (!), this is no good at all. What do others think? What can we do? I do not want to spend my whole editing career adding captions to existing tables! CrazyBuilder talk 20:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't fully agree on MOS:COLHEAD style but only for this specific topic.

Hello there. I came from the Wikipedia:WikiProject Horse racing/Japanese horse racing taskforce. In this taskforce, Most of my work involving writings and completing BLP's of the horses that races. In the Japanese horses BLP, there are sections for Racing Form/Statistics/Records. In this section, Most of us early on using the table created by User:Nk clr, in the Rulership since last year.

In this style, we separated by season and did put a sub-header in the middle of the table. Which was by the season. You can check the Rulership page on how it looks.

Based on the current MOS, the one which being switched to row style like Forever Young or separated table like Black Caviar, an Australian horse is obeyed the rule. I have several problems on this approach.

1) The table looked draggy and pale. Because almost no colour usage to not violate MOS:COLOR
2) Repetition of ages looked far goofy than just putting a sub-header on what season they are.
3) No surfaces stated which is IMPORTANT as Turf, Dirt and All Weather tracks has different sorts of horses suited to it. Somehow it also removed the legend of the surfaces.

One of the pages that being modified is Wonder Acute. Without reading the write-ups on his career, You don't know that he was a turf or dirt horses without looking at the header. This horse is lucky he got only one turf starts. How about a horse that got balanced dirt/turf starts like Agnes Digital and Ushba Tesoro? Both still use the table style by Nk clr so you can clearly see which races they run on dirt and which one is on turf.

My post here is not about changing the MOS:COLHEAD as a whole. I just asking that for Japanese horse, this style is allowed and the existing table no need for a change. I can and did obey the existing MOS:COLHEAD in my other taskforce like WP:BADMINTON and also to non JP Horses like Scandinavia and Magnitude. Heck even to the Byzantine Dream and Gentildonna which are Japanese horses, I did follow it as the original writer of that page used that table.

And I also think, this style has its advantage:

1) Separated by season is easier to see in which season the horse form whether it was good or bad year for the horse in general.
2) No need repetition of years in date column.
3) Easier to state what surfaces they race on.
4) More interesting for normal people eye to look at a simpler and segregated table. That came from me who actually write the full career of several horses.
Lowyat Slyder (talk) 06:19, 5 November 2026 (UTC)

@Lowyat Slyder: I'll try to explain, and someone can correct me or add more if needed. I'll use this one as an example: Agnes Digital#Racing form.

The markup for "1999 – two-year-old season" is a data cell, not a header cell, so technically MOS:COLHEAD doesn't exactly apply. Screen readers announce headers when navigating cells they describe, which is the issue with sectional "headers", they incorrectly describe other sections below them. Screen readers would not announce a data cell for other cells. Technically, those should probably be headers since they visually describe their cells, which a screen reader would not be able to properly describe. That is where splitting the table up into smaller tables with sectional captions could improve the reading experience. It might make navigation easier for screen readers where caption is announced before the table is navigated and those users can skip the table if they want a different year. Or add the year to the date column.

Beyond that, I did notice some other things:

Sorting might help on certain columns like finding the fastest time.

Legend needs to be above the table so it is read first by screen readers and the sighted, and not rely solely on color since screen readers don't read color. See MOS:LEGEND. Symbols can be used or maybe move those short labels into the cells they describe like "2,500 m (firm turf)" and "1,800 m (muddy dirt)".

For "R1:59.8", not sure how screen readers will read its efn, if at all: "R indicated that it was a record time finish". It probably needs to be in a legend.

The table has "nowrap" applied, which is making that large table overflow past the main content area on the right. Nowrap generally has specific use cases like for Dates and numbers. I would remove that and let the text wrap responsively. Just be sure to test on narrower screens, which you can simply resize your browser window. Jroberson108 (talk) 09:57, 5 November 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your output.

I do understand the need to sort it out by the column sortable features. I just think in the way we present the form, it was in chronological starts according to seasons. The needs to sort by fastest time is irrelevant in horse racing but I can see people doing that.

About the surfaces legend, we did sort it out without colour usage in some pages although the description is a bit lengthy - Turf 1800 m (Firm) for example with the column of Distance (Condition).

In my latest created page, Puro Magic, I did remove the nowrap as user:ItzAPotato2009 switched it.

And Legend need to be above the table is something that I did want to improve it as the List of winners of Japanese Thoroughbred Triple Crown races did this. It was just too many to sort at this point but I will look into this in the future. Lowyat Slyder (talk) 10:21, 5 November 2026 (UTC)

Can we all follow the existing format for now for Japanese racehorses and revert back any changes made to keep everything uniform. It's always like this where someone would try to add their style and completely change the format but would not completely do it to all the other pages thus leaving everything looking inconsistent.

I see the same thing done to Japanese horse race pages like Nakayama Kimpai where one contributor tried to reformat the race history table but never finishing the job on the rest of the Japanese races.

Then we can open up a discussion somewhere on what format to agree on while following the MOS. Nk clr (talk) 09:33, 6 November 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Jroberson108, thanks for explaining the above. I think I'm broadly in agreement with everything you'd said and it matches my understanding of the MOS, especially the stuff regarding the legend overhaul that should ideally be done on all these pages.

In particular thanks for the clarification on the "x year old" rows. I must admittedly say I do like the aesthetics of them a lot, but I appreciate that doesn't exact trump issues for screen-readers. Non-JP horses that are FA level like Secretariat, American Pharoah and Mairzy Doates all just bite the bullet and have their records in one big table (and have all their columns sortable by default), although in fairness all three of those pale in race number to the shared Wonder Acute's nearly 50 races.

Still, perhaps the exact setup is getting off track and one more for the task force and/or horseracing project to have on their talk page. I'd say I'm against reverting the changes on already altered pages since we could easily end up altering them twice if that happens, and/or no consensus is reached. RandomEditsForWhenIRemember (talk) 18:32, 6 November 2026 (UTC)

Makes sense, I have started a topic on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Horse racing/Japanese horse racing#Racing Statistics table format Nk clr (talk) 02:20, 7 November 2026 (UTC)