diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 32771d1c..8e8d30c7 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -36,5 +36,8 @@ node_modules/
 .code-workspace
 
 # test datasets (e.g. Xenium ones)
+# symlinks
+data
+# data folder
 data/
 tests/data
diff --git a/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium.py b/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium.py
index 76a41898..a2f84ede 100644
--- a/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium.py
+++ b/src/spatialdata_io/readers/visium.py
@@ -253,7 +253,7 @@ def visium(
             rgb=None,
         )
 
-    return SpatialData(images=images, shapes=shapes, table=table)
+    return SpatialData(images=images, shapes=shapes, tables={"table": table})
 
 
 def _read_image(image_file: Path, imread_kwargs: dict[str, Any]) -> Any: