The intent of this success criterion is to help users understand what information is contained in different sections of the content. When sections have clear and descriptive titles, users can find the information they seek more easily, and they can understand the relationships between different parts of the content more easily.
Section titles give an overview of topics addressed in a document or other resource. They guide users' attention and help them remember important ideas and information. User agents may use section titles to create an automatic Table of Contents, or simply create a list of sections. Section titles that do not give users information about the content make the document harder to understand. Clear and informative section titles help users understand the document or other resource.
The following technique is deemed to be sufficient by the WCAG Working Group for meeting success criterion 3.1 L3 SC4.
Note: All of the listed techniques must be used; none is sufficient by itself
Note: The following are techniques, not rules. Like any other technique, they must be used with skill and understanding in order to achieve good results.
Write section titles that clearly indicate the topic of their section.
Make the content structure clear and obvious. Users should be able to get a summary or overview of the content by skimming just the section titles.
A title should make sense with only the additional knowledge of the title of its delivery unit.
Make titles as concise, distinct and relevant as possible.
Use simple words that are descriptive, and avoid jargon.
Although not required for conformance, the following additional techniques should be considered in order to make content more accessible.
Put the most important words at the beginning of the section heading.
Start section titles with key words that distinguish them from other section titles and are unique.
Each section should only cover one specific idea.
Subsections of a section should provide more detailed explanation of the section.
Sections at the same level of the hierarchy should be in order of importance.
Use the technology-specific techniques for GL1.3 L1 SC1 so that section titles can be programmatically determined.
This success criterion helps people who use screen readers by ensuring that section titles are meaningful when heard out of context - for example, in a Table of Contents, or when jumping from heading to heading within a page.
This success criterion may also help users with low vision who may see only a few words at a time.
Users with reading disabilities benefit when section titles make it possible to predict what each section contains.
Example 1: A news site.
The home page of a news site lists the headlines for the top stories of the hour. Under each heading are the first 35 words of the story and a link to the full article. Each headline gives a clear idea of the article’s subject.
Example 2: A guide on how to write well.
An HTML guide on writing contains the following section headings:
Theofanos, M.F., and Redish, J. (2003). Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers. Interactions, Volume X, Issue 6, November-December 2003, pages 38-51, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/947226.947227.
Methods for Designing Usable Web Sites Methods for collecting, writing, and revising web content to make it easy to use.
How Users Read on the Web A study showing that most users scan web pages rather than reading them word by word.
Applying Writing Guidelines to Web Pages A report on the effects of making web sites concise, easy to scan, and objective.
Writing Better Web Page Titles How to write titles for web pages that will be more effective for use with search engines. The tips for writing better page titles also apply to section titles.