This is a draft document supplied by the WCAG Techniques Task Force. It in no way represents a WCAG Working Group consensus or agreement and is provided for informational and discussion purposes only. The accessibility tests listed below should not be construed as required for conformance with the proposed WCAG2.
Copyright 2005, ATRC, University Of Toronto, All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply.
This document provides information to Web content developers who wish to make their content comply with the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" [WCAG20] (currently an Editor's Draft). It includes test cases, code examples, and references to help authors test for compliance. The tests in this document are specific to Hypertext Markup Language content [HTML4], [XHTML1] although some tests may contain references to other W3C technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets [CSS1]. HTML Web content complies with the WCAG 2.0 if it passes all the appropriate tests in this document. If HTML Web content fails one or more of these tests then it does not conform to the WCAG 2.0
Note: WCAG 2.0 is an Editor's Draft and the cross-references between success criteria and tests are not fully established.
This document will be part of a series of documents published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to support WCAG 2.0.
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.
Publication as an Editor's Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document is prepared by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG) to show how the HTML Test Suite for WCAG 2.0 might read. This draft is not yet based on consensus of the WCAG Working Group nor has it gone through W3C process. The WCAG WG intends to publish this as a Conformance Test Suite at the same time or soon after WCAG 2.0 becomes a Recommendation.
The Working Group welcomes comments on this document at public-comments-wcag20. The archives for this list are publicly available.
This document has been produced as part of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The goals of the WCAG WG are discussed in the Working Group charter. The WCAG WG is part of the WAI Technical Activity.
This is the HTML Test Suite for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). The guidelines provide a generic description of the requirements for a Web site that is accessible to people with disabilities. The HTML test suite provides a method for testing conformance to these guidelines. This test suite represents the best thinking of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and as such is the only method for testing conformance to WCAG 2.0. The Working Group strongly encourages authors to use this test suite. Additionally the Working Group strongly encourages manufacturers of authoring tools to support the process of authoring content that conforms to this test suite, and encourages manufacturers or user agents, including assistive technologies, to implement the behaviors described by these tests.
This test suite is not perfect and will be updated periodically to accommodate new practices in creating accessible web content.
These tests are intended for use both with HTML 4.01 and with XHTML 1.0/1.1. To encourage migration to newer technologies, examples used in the tests are XHTML unless there is a specific reason to present an HTML example. Some references have not yet been updated to point preferentially to XHTML. This will be adjusted in a future draft of this document.
Note: Tests in this document are known to contain errors. The purpose of this document is to receive feedback about the content of the tests to ensure that future drafts are more accurate and useful. These tests should not yet be implemented by people attempting to attain WCAG 2 conformance at this time.
Each test in the suite is given a status as part of the conformance test process. Only tests that have received a status of 'closed' will be used as part of the final test suite.
Listed below is the HTML test suite sorted by HTML element. The test suite may also be viewed sorted by guideline or priority level.
Each source anchor contains text.
All source anchors contain text that identifies the link destination.
All area elements have an alt attribute.
area link to sound file must have text transcript.
Alt text for all area elements contains all non decorative text in the image area.
All frames have a title attribute.
All frame titles are not empty.
All frame titles do not contain placeholder text.
All frame titles identify the purpose or function of the frame.
The header following an h2 is h3 or any header less than h3.
All h2 elements are not used for formatting.
The header following an h3 is h4 or any header less than h4.
All h3 elements are not used for formatting.
The header following an h4 is h5 or any header less than h5.
All h4 elements are not used for formatting.
All img elements have an alt attribute.
Alt text for all img elements is the empty string ("") if the image is decorative.
Alt text for all img elements is not placeholder text.
Alt text for all img elements that are not used as source anchors conveys the same information as the image.
A long description (longdesc) file is used for each img element that does not have Alt text and/or body text conveying the same information as the image.
All img elements that have a longdesc attribute also have an associated 'd-link'.
For all img elements, content text does not refer to the image by color alone.
Alt text for all img elements contains all text in the image unless the image text is decorative or appears elsewhere in the content.
Image Alt text is short.
All input elements with a type attribute value of "image" have an alt attribute.
Alt text for all input elements with a type attribute value of "image" contains all non decorative text in the image.
Alt text for all input elements with a type attribute value of "image" identifies the purpose or function of the image.
Each label associated with an input element contains text.
Each label describes its asssociated input element.
All input elements, with type of "text", have an explicitly associated label.
All input elements, with type of "password", have an explicitly associated label.
All input elements, with type of "checkbox", have an explicitly associated label.
All input elements, with type of "file", have an explicitly associated label.
All input elements, with type of "radio", have an explicitly associated label.
legend text is not empty or whitespace.
legend text is not placeholder text.
legend text describes the group of choices.
Content contains a title element.
title contains text.
title is not placeholder text.
title is descriptive of the content.