on headings, labels, links, and image maps

Hello,

A colleague has been reviewing Understanding WCAG 2.0 and Techniques for
WCAG 2.0 and has the following questions on: headings, links, labels, and
image maps. Rather than sending  the questions individually, I am sharing
all five below and would be grateful for your collective wisdom on any/all
of these. Each question does have an associated reference as indicated.


Headings
reference: Understanding WCAG 2.0
WCAG 2.0-1.3.1 [Info and Relationships] and WCAG 2.0-2.4.10 [Section
Headings] both map to WCAG 1.0-3.5 [Use header elements to convey document
structure and use them according to specification]
1) I'm having difficulty distinguishing at what level of compliance
applying headings in a hierarchal order is required.  Is my interpretation
correct that WCAG 2.0-1.3.1 at Level A requires only applying headings
using markup within the HTML code to convey the structure and WCAG 2.4.10
at Level AAA requires that headings are properly nested?

Links
reference: Understanding WCAG 2.0
WCAG 2.4.4 [Link Purpose (In Context)]
2) Am I correctly interpreting that a link that is described by the URI
itself does not comply with this checkpoint, even if the sentence or
paragraph beforehand provides the description as to the purpose of the URI
hyperlink?

reference: Techniques for WCAG 2.0
reference: WCAG 2.0-H33 [Supplementing link text with the title attribute]
3) Text under the "User Agent and Assistive Technology Support Notes"
states the following"
"Implementing this technique with the title attribute is only sufficient
if the title attribute is accessibility supported. The content of the
title attribute needs to be available to all keyboard users (not only
those with text-to-speech software) for this attribute to be accessibility
supported."

Does this mean that the "title" attribute is only considered a WCAG 2.0
Level A compliance item for providing link purpose if the "title"
attribute is also made available to keyboard only users?  Or is this
simply an informative side note?

Labels
reference: Understanding WCAG 2.0
WCAG 2.0-3.3.2 [Labels or Instructions]
4) The text under the "Specific Benefits…" section states the following:
"Field labels located in close proximity to the associated field assist
users of screen magnifiers because the field and label are more likely to
visible within the magnified area of the page."

However the Comparison of WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints to WCAG 2.0 document notes
that the WCAG 1.0-10.2 [Until user agents support explicit associations
between labels and form controls, for all form controls with implicitly
associated labels, ensure that the label is properly positioned] is no
longer a requirement since:
"User agents now support explicit associations of labels with form
controls, so the "until user agents" clause has been satisfied. This is
therefore no longer a requirement under WCAG 2.0.".

I'm having difficulty understanding whether positioning field labels in
close proximity to the field controls is a WCAG 2.0 requirement for Level
A compliance or not?

Image Maps
reference: Techniques for WCAG 2.0
WCAG 2.0-H24 [Providing text alternatives for the area elements of image
maps]
5) Text under the "User Agent and Assistive Technology Support Notes"
states the following:
"Therefore, when using image maps, successful implementation of this
technique would require either:

Ensuring the area element alt attribute value is displayed in response to
attaining focus (including keyboard focus), and that this applies both to
situations where images are loaded and not loaded. OR
A redundant mechanism serving the same purpose as the area elements is
present in the Web Page.
"
Does this mean that the image maps are considered a WCAG 2.0 Level A
compliance item only if they display the alternative for each area upon
receiving keyboard focus or providing redundant set of visible links for
keyboard users?  I'm confused because I don't understand why this is only
a requirement for image maps when it's not required for short alternatives
for images or why it is recommended to use "hidden" text for links that
are also not available to keyboard users?  Or is this note specific to
server-side image maps requiring a keyboard equivalent (in comparison to
client-side image maps which are natively keyboard accessible by default)?

Jennison


-- 
Jennison Mark Asuncion
Co-Director, Adaptech Research Network <www.adaptech.org>
LinkedIn at <www.linkedin.com/in/jennison>

Received on Thursday, 27 May 2010 01:29:50 UTC