Does the DDA warn against tables?

[ShinyB]

Hey all,

I know we have some here who don't like tables but whilst I am still teaching myself HTML language I am still using them.

Does anyone know if it's against the Disability Discriminations Act to use tables in sites if the site is to comply?

ShinyB

[Availor]

Helly ShinyB.

I didn't quite understand your question when you said "Disability Discriminations Act". What I can say is, that no matter what, tables are still an invaluble part of website design. CSS is good but when it comes to more complex data like asp, asp.net, xml, php you need tables. No matter what is being said about CSS div tags being the "industry standart" I found out it's not.

When it comes to portals and big dynamic sites they will only use tables, and these are the reasons:

1. DIV CSS tags will look, flow, collapse differently in different browsers whilst tables will remain the same.
2. Only tables can show dynamic content like XML and XSLT.
3. It's very hard to control div tags when you have much data like on portals.
4. Tables will load as quick as DIV tags if you specify their width and height parameters.
5. You can create tables with serverside code, while you cannot do so with DIV tags.

I'm sure there's more.

In conclusion: Tables are still very important and are far from vanish from the web design industry.
If you are to create a small nice layout with much text and some pictures, I'd do it with DIV tags without tables. On different cases I'd go for tables.

[jyoung]

Not that familiar with DDA, but must be similar to disability legislation in the U.S. There is information at the W3C (http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#gl-table-markup) dealing with tables in web pages. It seems that you would need to be concerned about screen reader terminals for the blind. They don't handle tables very well. I suppose that if you do your due diligence in making your site accessible you would probably be OK. But I am not a lawyer. Check out that link, may be helpful.

Joe