2022-11-28: Summary of "What makes web data tables accessible? Insights and a tool for rendering accessible tables for people with visual impairments"

Figure 1: Based on the guidelines and the study, the authors built a browser plug-in to make the table more accessible. Tables are an excellent medium for sighted people to understand the data's structure and contents. They are popular in many online documents, including news articles, government reports, and online applications like bank statements. It uses many visual metaphors that sighted people can quickly notice. Those metaphors facilitate an understanding structure without explicitly explaining the complex system. But you can imagine how hard it would be for people with visual impairments who need to use a screen reader, which linearizes all this information. Imagine how confusing it would be when the user's cursor is on top of an empty cell. For example, the screen reader doesn't say anything. The user might think they didn't press the key or need instruction of guidelines to access the multilevel merge cell. Yanan Wang et al. recently published a paper on “ Wh