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
- 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
- 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:
- F1: Changing the meaning of content by positioning information with CSS
- G57: Ordering the content in a meaningful sequence
- PDF3: Ensuring correct tab and reading order in PDF documents
- PDF4: Hiding decorative images with the Artifact tag in PDF documents
- PDF17: Specifying consistent page numbering for PDF documents