AirTable Accessibility
This page gathers the IT Subcommittee's resources and reviews of the accessibility of AirTable. This page will be updated as new information is available or further reviews are conducted.
Accessibility Overview
In general, AirTable is not accessible in the free version we tested. There are several barriers for anyone using Assistive Technologies, especially screen readers. It's a visually-heavy website that can be cognitively complex. We tested the backend of a free version to create a database, as well as some of the outputs of AirTable.
General Information
- AirTable Keyboard Shortcuts
- An interesting post on the community forum about accessibility issues from 2020, featuring Michael Cyr from EDUCAUSE ITAccess group.
- Another forum post from 2021 about accessibility issues in sharing and form formats.
- A forum post that suggestions JotForm can be integrated to deal with some accessibility issues.
- A wiki post outlining several issues that came up in testing AirTable in January 2022.
- Businesshub is a website that uses AirTable, but notes that it's not accessible to screen readers.
- Github post with markup changes to improve accessibility.
Known Accessibility Issues
Keyboard Control
You cannot use a keyboard only to navigate the website. Several of the menus require the use of a mouse to activate options. The keyboard shortcuts page is inaccessible, and the keyboard shortcuts aren't usable if you depend on a screen reader. Tabbing for navigation also doesn't follow the logical order of visual elements; for example, when trying to create a gallery, the four items tab in the order of "2, 3, 4, 1" rather than "1, 2, 3, 4." Additionally, when you first set up an account, the welcome pop-up cannot be accessed or closed using just the keyboard. It covers the entire page, and cannot be "ESC"d out of, either. Several times pop-ups appeared that required a mouse.
One good point is that the Customize Cards setting allows for drag-and-drop using a keyboard.
Screen Reader
You cannot use AirTable if you are screen reader dependent. If you use a screen reader to augment low vision, you may be able to use some aspects of AirTable. Most of the buttons are not labeled, and there is no consistent use of headings. For example, in the Kanban view of a base, every element, including the tags, were all at heading level 1. The home screen includes two headers labeled "Home." The Project Tracker template has no labeled elements, and no way of knowing when you've reached the bottom of the page as a screen reader gets stuck in an endless loop around the two active elements on the page (these elements only said "open block view" and "expand extension options").
There is no usable alt text on images. Hidden spacer images are used and are not labeled, so there are many phantom "graphic" or "image" elements that appear on the page. Graphs are also not labeled and have no alternative text. It is unclear as a screen reader user how to get to the data contained within the graphs.
Zoom, Text Size and Color Contrast
AirTable becomes unusable at 300% zoom. At 200%, the side menu collapses into a hamburger menu that can't be used with a screen reader or keyboard, and any popups are cut off by the screen and can't be scrolled.
Several areas of the interface uses very small text, and nearly every page had low-contrast errors coming up. The main text in some areas appears to be a medium gray instead of black. The main area where color blindness will inhibit use of the site were the charts and graphs sections.
Contact Support
AirTable no longer allows for questions to be emailed directly to support. You must go through the Help Menu in the AirTable interface and select "Message Support." Unfortunately, this action is impossible if you are screen reader dependent or only use the keyboard, as menu items cannot be navigated or selected through the keyboard. AirTable uses a chatbot to do a first-run of any questions, but our experiences with asking it questions is that it would give completely irrelevant information. You must use a mouse to select "talk to an agent;" again, making it impossible for a screen reader user to get help. They also direct users to their forums to ask questions, but a quick search (including the "General Information" links above) show that many questions remain unanswered, or are met with strangely aggressive resistance from other users.
While it is understandable to ask individuals to create an account before reporting a problem to the support people, the lack of accessibility in these options limits the ability of some disabled users to ask for help or report accessibility issues. We are hoping our connection to the support group (developed through attending an AirTable training webinar) will allow us to report these issues and suggest an alternative or focused accessibility issue report form that is accessible.
AirTable Outputs
AirTable is often used to organize conferences for GLAM groups. Overall, the default embedded AirTable Table is not accessible. It is impossible to keyboard navigate the Table, and the Table is not set up for screen reader accessibility. It's the equivalent of taking a screen cap of a table and expecting everyone to be able to read it and use it. All functionality of the Table, such as sorting, is not accessible. The backend is not accessible to keyboard navigation or screen readers.
AirTable has been used to create forms for voting. These forms are often accessible, or only have a few labelling errors. If elements of the form are required, that information is not shared with the screen reader.
For example, in preparation for the DLF Forum 2023, AirTable was used to create a form for the community to vote on sessions. The form itself was accessible, but the Table display of all the session descriptions were not. An alternative Google Sheet had to be developed for BVI users.
Another example was the AirTable uses for ACRL 2021, which was completely inaccessible. Individuals had to request to be sent a spreadsheet of events and information in order to receive the same information that was only available through an AirTable.