department-of-veterans-affairs / vets-design-system-documentation

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Update a11y considerations guidance for tables to discourage use of tables for non-data #3505

Open humancompanion-usds opened 2 weeks ago

humancompanion-usds commented 2 weeks ago

Duplicate check

This update is for:

Component

What is the name?

va-table

What is the nature of this update?

What problem does this solve?

We had a Design Intent with a team who switched from a Card to a Table display for non-data and @artsymartha68 and I had to push back on them to explore other designs. Currently in Table guidance we just point to the USWDS a11y guidance. It says nothing about us not wanting teams to use tables for non-data displays/layout. We need to add our own guidance pushing teams away from this option as it is not easy for screen reader users to navigate tables for display purposes. We could offer up alternatives in the guidance (using more data-sense Card displays, offering filtering and the ability to compare Cards, etc.)

Additional Context

I want to do this now because in the adding of new Table variations to our v3 component, some teams are taking that as a signal that we want them to use tables when we really don't unless they are displaying data.