Techniques for WCAG 2.0

Skip to Content (Press Enter)

-

H59: Using the link element and navigation tools

Applicability

HTML and XHTML

This technique relates to:

User Agent and Assistive Technology Support Notes

See User Agent Support Notes for H59.

Description

The objective of this technique is to describe how the link element can provide metadata about the position of an HTML page within a set of Web pages or can assist in locating content with a set of Web pages. The value of the rel attributes indicates what type of relation is being described, and the href attribute provides a link to the document having that relation. Multiple link elements can provide multiple relationships. Several values of rel are useful:

Examples

Example 1

A Web page for Chapter 2 of an on-line book might contain the following links within the head section.

Example Code:

<link rel="Contents" href="Contents.html" title="Table of Contents"  />
<link rel="Index" href="Index.html" title="Index" />
<link rel="Prev" href="Chapter01.html" title="01. Why Volunteer?" />
<link rel="Next" href="Chapter03.html" title="03. Who Volunteers?" />

Resources

Resources are for information purposes only, no endorsement implied.

Tests

Procedure

For a Web page that is within a sequence or collection of Web pages:

  1. Check that all link elements pertaining to navigation occur in the head section of the document.

  2. For each link element in the head section of the document which pertains to navigation, check that it contains at least:

    1. a rel attribute identifying the link type

    2. a valid href attribute to locate the appropriate resource

Expected Results

If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.

Techniques are Informative

Techniques are informative—that means they are not required. The basis for determining conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the success criteria from the WCAG 2.0 standard—not the techniques. For important information about techniques, please see the Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria section of Understanding WCAG 2.0.