Layout Table

An HTML table element used to control the visual positioning of content on a web page rather than to present tabular data. Layout tables were a common web design technique before CSS became widely supported, but their use is now considered a significant accessibility barrier. Screen readers may announce layout tables as data tables, causing confusion by reading row and column counts and attempting to navigate cells as structured data. WCAG recommends using CSS for visual layout instead. When layout tables must be used, they should include role="presentation" or role="none" to prevent assistive technologies from interpreting them as data structures. Studies show that nearly half of all table elements on the web are still used for layout purposes.