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Baseline for Documents

18. Meaningful Content and Sequence

Accessibility Requirements

  • WCAG SC 1.3.1 Info and Relationships – Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.
  • WCAG SC 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence – When the sequence in which content is presented affects its meaning, a correct reading sequence can be programmatically determined.

Test Method Rationale

Meaningful content must be available to all users. The sequence of the content (in context) must be logical and preserve content meaning.

Limitations, Assumptions, or Exceptions

  • Meaningful content provides information or context and includes content in headers, footers, watermarks, master page items, artifacts, and in floating elements.
  • Inline styling is included in this test.
  • Invisible content (text and background are the same color) is used for accessibility purposes and is not covered in Test 18.A. It is covered in 18.B.
  • Programmatically identified content is exposed to assistive technology. Document content that is not exposed to assistive technology can vary depending on document type.

18.A Test Procedure for Meaningful Visible Content

Baseline Test ID: 18.A-MeaningfulContent

Identify Content

Meaningful visible content

Do not include meaningful background images, which are covered under Baseline 6. Images.

Test Instructions

  1. Check that all meaningful content is available in the body of the document or programmatically identified. [SC 1.3.1]

Test Results

If any of the above checks fail, then Baseline Test 18.A-MeaningfulContent fails.

18.B Test Procedure for Meaningful Sequence

Baseline Test ID: 18.B-MeaningfulSequence

Identify Content

Identify all meaningful content including invisible meaningful content

Test Instructions

  1. Check that the reading order of all meaningful content (in context) is logical. [SC 1.3.2]

Test Results

If the above checks fail, then Baseline Test 18.B-MeaningfulSequence fails.

Advisory: Tips for Streamlined Test Processes

None

WCAG 2.2 Techniques

The following sufficient techniques and/or common failures were considered when developing this test procedure for this baseline requirement: