· Understanding Guideline 3.1 L3 SC3
· Techniques for meeting Guideline 3.1 L3 SC3
· Benefits and Examples of Guideline 3.1 L3 SC3
3. Section headings and link text are understandable when read by themselves or as a group (for example in a list of links or a table of contents).
Note: This success criterion is in DRAFT form. It is presented to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group as a formal proposal, but it has not earned the consensus of the Working Group, and it does not appear in the current Public Working Draft at http://www.w3.org/tr/wcag20. It is presented here for discussion only. It must not be cited as a normative reference.
Section titles
Text that identifies portions of a larger document, especially text marked as a heading.
Link text
Text that identifies the destination or purpose of a link.
The intent of this success criterion is to ensure that users can understand links and headings when user agents create menus that present this information out of its original context, or when users encounter individual links or headings without the surrounding context.
This success criterion applies when the delivery unit contains link text, section titles, or both.
Technology-Independent techniques for Guideline 3.1 L3 SC3
Screen readers and other user agents create lists of links and headings. Users navigate these menus to choose the links or headings they want.
People using screen readers may also jump from heading to heading or link to link within a Web page, in much the same way as sighted users skim the page rather than reading every word.
Link text that says only “Click here” or “More…” does not make sense in either case. It is especially confusing when several links that go to different pages have the same link text—for example, if links to the full text of several news stories all say “More…”.
It is easy to understand link text that includes significant words or phrases from the title or first heading of the destination page. This helps users recognize a collection of individual pages as a cohesive whole.
Section titles give an outline of the topics addressed in the document. They guide users’ attention and help them remember important ideas and information. User agents may use section headings to create an automatic Tqable of Contents, or simply create a list of headings. Headings 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.
· Section headings
· Header misuse
Advisory techniques: going beyond Guideline 3.1 L3 SC3
· Put the most important words at the beginning of the link or section heading.
Benefits: How Guideline 3.1 L3 SC3 Helps People with Disabilities
· This success criterion helps people who use screen readers by ensuring that link text and section titles convey meaningful information when heard out of context—for example in a Table of Contents or a list of links, or when jumping from link to link or heading to heading within a page.
· It may also help users with low vision who may see only a few words at a time.words
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 f ull article. Each headline gives a clear idea of the article’s subject. The link to the full article says, “More about” plus a key phrase from the headline. Screen reader users can use the headings list to identify the headlines they are most interested in, and the links list to locate the complete articles they want.
· 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. Retrieved 3 May 2005 from http://redish.net/content/papers/interactions.html.