Table headers are essential to enhance the accessibility of a table’s data, particularly for assistive technologies like screen readers. These
headers provide the necessary context to transform data into information. Without headers, users get rapidly lost in the flow of data.
This rule raises an issue whenever it detects a table that does not have a full row or column with <th> elements.
Exceptions
No issue will be raised on <table> used for layout purpose, i.e. when it contains a role attribute set to
"presentation" or "none".
<table role="presentation">
<tr>
<td>Name</td>
<td>Age</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>John Doe</td>
<td>42</td>
</tr>
</table>
Note that using <table> for layout purpose is a bad practice.
No issue will be raised on <table> containing an aria-hidden attribute set to "true".
<table aria-hidden="true">
<tr>
<td>Name</td>
<td>Age</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>John Doe</td>
<td>42</td>
</tr>
</table>
