from Screen reader testing (#4194):

• Sample 2, item 66. dates are given in a table. This has no column header. I suggest "Date" as the header, or not to use tables here.
• Sample 4, item 33. table does not have unique headers for rows and columns, and what row headers exist, are only shown visually with <strong> tags rather than <th>
• Sample 4, item 35. following footnotes inside the table (e.g. in table 7) link to footnotes by moving the page on the screen, but reading or tabbing onwards takes you back to the original location, so footnote cannot be read.
• Sample 4, item 36. table footnotes do not have the letter of the footnote to which they relate.
• Sample 4, item 37. table footnotes are in paragraphs, rather than as a list.

https://jats4r.niso.org/accessibility/
JATS table a11y

I have started going through the codebase to work out what tables we have and what kind of updates might be needed. I think for the majority, I have the information needed to make updates, so I'd like to move this to Dev Ready and continue working on it there - might as well make changes as I review rather than report my findings only to have to go through them all again to make updates. It is possible some tables will be missed, but this should address the majority, and any outliers could be picked up later as individual fixes.

For info:

I have found 211 tables that need reviews.

Having taking an initial look at the first 24 tables:

• 8 tables with empty cells
• 8 tables with merged cells
• 1 table with a header marked as td
• 7 tables that have passed the first review that was just looking for obvious issues.

From this I believe that even if I only fix the obvious stuff, it would make a big difference.

Working on tables within themes directory only, and using W3C Tables Tutorial for guidance.