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Pulseaccessibility

Tables Use Caption Instead of Colspan Cells

What This Audit Checks

This audit detects tables that use a <td> or <th> cell with a colspan spanning the full table width as a fake caption. This pattern simulates a table title visually but is not recognized as a caption by assistive technologies.

Why It Matters

Screen readers use <caption> to announce what a table is about before reading its contents. A colspan cell is just another data cell to assistive technology, so the table appears unnamed. Users cannot decide whether a table is relevant without first listening to its entire contents.

How to Fix It

  • Replace the colspan cell with a <caption> element placed as the first child of <table>.
  • Move the text content from the fake caption cell into the <caption>.
  • Remove the row that contained the colspan cell entirely.
<!-- Bad: fake caption using colspan -->
<table>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="3">Monthly Sales Data</td>
  </tr>
  <tr><th>Month</th><th>Units</th><th>Revenue</th></tr>
  ...
</table>

<!-- Good: proper caption element -->
<table>
  <caption>Monthly Sales Data</caption>
  <tr><th>Month</th><th>Units</th><th>Revenue</th></tr>
  ...
</table>

How Pulse Tracks This

Pulse flags this audit in your Lighthouse accessibility score. When the audit fails, Pulse shows which elements triggered it so you can fix them directly.

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