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You are here: Home / Web Accessibility / WCAG / Understanding SC 2.4.2 Page Titled

Understanding SC 2.4.2 Page Titled

Last Modified: April 1, 2018 by Raghavendra Satish Peri 3 Comments

Web pages have titles that describe topic or purpose. (Level A)

 

The intent of this success criteria is to provide clear & descriptive titles to the web pages so that they are understood easily by all users. This success criteria is helpful for visually challenged users, cognitive users, motor disable users & users with short-term memory. Titles of the pages will give a clear & concise picture to the user what the web page is about & what to expect on the web page. While 2.4.4 link purpose talks about the purpose of the link, it is a best practice to link to web pages using their respective page titles.

 

By reading the title of the page, user must understand the purpose of the page. Sccreen readers such as JAWS & NVDA provide a shortcut key insert+t to check the title of the page. If there is more than one tab opened, then user can just look at the title & identify which page he/she is working on. In addition to that, a unique title would also help the users to ensure whether they are on the right page/step. Moreover, providing unique title would help index the site properly by search engines.

 

Code Example

 

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
lt;html lang=”en-us”>
<head>
<header>
<title>ACCESSIBLE CAROUSEL EXAMPLE USING ARIA</title>
</header>
</head>
 

In the above example we can easily see that <title> is being used to provide the title for the web page. This is the attribute that  provides title even when we are running websites on CMS platforms like WordPress or Drupal.

 

Points to Remember

  • Provide a unique title.
  • Make sure that title is between 50-75 characters.
  • Make sure title of the page is the heading level H1 on the page.
  • Title should contain web page name, bit of description & site name.
  • Make sure title describes purpose of the page.

References

Understanding Success Criterion 2.4.2

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Filed Under: WCAG Tagged With: drupal, page title, titles, WCAG, wordpress

About Raghavendra Satish Peri

Raghavendra Satish Peri is a digital accessibility evangelist working at Deque Systems as Product Manager [Accessibility]breaking web accessibility & mobile accessibility challenges. He authors an Accessibility Blog at DigitalA11Y.com & is galvanizing the adoption of accessibility by inspiring the local tech community with meetups and mentorship. He propelled this thought by founding HelloA11y.com, a community of accessibility professionals, developers and enthusiasts. When away from his computer, Raghava can be found at local cafes & restaurants sampling cuisines, attending local meetups, listening to audio books or writing on his Personal Blog at raghava.in.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Roopesh says

    April 2, 2018 at 12:49 pm

    Hi Raghavendra,

    Can we raise a bug under 2.4.2 if the page title is not marked as heading level 1?

    Please advise.

    Thanks,
    Roopseh

    Reply
    • Raghavendra Satish Peri says

      April 4, 2018 at 10:19 am

      Hi Roopesh,
      The heading level H1 can be anything that conveys information on the page & provides hierarchical structure. If page title is not provided as H1 then it is not a failure. There can be an alternative heading level H1 on the page that is relevant to overall content. Hope this clarifies it.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Authoring the Authors: Accessibility Best practices for Content authors • Digital A11Y says:
    February 19, 2020 at 10:52 am

    […] to WCAG SC 2.4.2 every page must be provided with a unique and descriptive title. By reading the title of the page […]

    Reply

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