Responsive text layout in Articulate Rise
What’s wrong with tables for layout?
Tables have long been a staple of web design, primarily for organising data. But when it comes to modern responsive web design – especially in tools like Rise – using tables for text layout can lead to a host of problems.
What is the issue?
1. Responsiveness
Tables are inherently rigid. They’re designed to maintain a fixed structure, which works well for data but poorly for text layout in responsive designs. On different screen sizes, tables can mean excessive scrolling and actually make it harder to follow the content, rather than easier.
2. Accessibility
Modern web accessibility standards prioritise fluid layouts that adapt to various assistive technologies, such as screen readers. Tables used for layout can confuse these tools, making it difficult for users with disabilities to navigate your content.
3. Mobile device compatibility
On mobile devices, where screen space is limited, tables can become particularly problematic. Responsive design is all about optimising the user experience across all devices. Text laid out in tables often fails to adapt well on smaller screens, leading to awkward, cramped layouts that frustrate users.
You can see this in in the table below, where the table looks fine on a wider screen, but just won’t work at all on a phone screen.
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What can we do instead of tables?
While tables have their place in web design, using them for text layout in responsive environments like Articulate Rise is generally a bad practice.
Instead of tables, using Rise’s Columns layout can give you text that will flow automatically to provide a good learner experience on each view. The Columns layout can give you two, three, or four columns, and you can create as many rows as you like.
It takes a little more thinking, to create the mini-headings required, but this is a small effort when we take the benefits for the learner into consideration.
The text flows beautifully across the different screen widths – easy to read no matter what device you’re using.
Writer, content designer and communications all-rounder. Strong on plain language, SEO and accessibility, with public sector, banking, medical and cybersecurity experience.
8moGreat advice. Sometimes I find the tables are not necessary in content at all, and that the information is just as clear, if not clearer, when presented as a list.