Info and Relationships

About

Version:	WCAG 2.0 and up
Number:	1.3.1
Level:	A
Applicability:	Articles Asides Bolding and Italics Figures Forms Lists Poetry Sections Tables
Requirement:	Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.
Guidance:	Understanding Success Criterion 1.3.1 How to meet Success Criterion 1.3.1
Techniques:	ARIA11: Using ARIA landmarks to identify regions of a page ARIA12: Using role=heading to identify headings ARIA13: Using aria-labelledby to name regions and landmarks ARIA16: Using aria-labelledby to provide a name for user interface controls ARIA17: Using grouping roles to identify related form controls ARIA20: Using the region role to identify a region of the page ARIA24: Semantically identifying a font icon with role="img" G115: Using semantic elements to mark up structure G117: Using text to convey information that is conveyed by variations in presentation of text G138: Using semantic markup whenever color cues are used G140: Separating information and structure from presentation to enable different presentations H39: Using caption elements to associate data table captions with data tables H42: Using h1-h6 to identify headings H43: Using id and headers attributes to associate data cells with header cells in data tables H44: Using label elements to associate text labels with form controls H48: Using ol, ul and dl for lists or groups of links H49: Using semantic markup to mark emphasized or special text H51: Using table markup to present tabular information H63: Using the scope attribute to associate header cells and data cells in data tables H65: Using the title attribute to identify form controls when the label element cannot be used H71: Providing a description for groups of form controls using fieldset and legend elements H73: Using the summary attribute of the table element to give an overview of data tables H85: Using OPTGROUP to group OPTION elements inside a SELECT H97: Grouping related links using the nav element SCR21: Using functions of the Document Object Model (DOM) to add content to a page T1: Using standard text formatting conventions for paragraphs T2: Using standard text formatting conventions for lists T3: Using standard text formatting conventions for headings

Purpose

The purpose of this success criterion is to ensure that users who cannot see the structure conveyed through the presentation of the content have access to this information.

Proper tagging of structure allows assistive technologies to provide equivalent reading ease, such as enabling users to navigate tables by column and row, jump over list items to find information, and hear when they encounter new paragraphs and sections of content.

How to Meet

This success criterion is one of the most open-ended to meet as the visual structuring of publications covers many aspects of the content.

The general principal is that content must not be styled to appear one way for visual readers while being structured in a less meaningful way that prevents assistive technologies from being able to understand the purpose.

Some of the more common applications of this requirement are that:

Lists must use list tagging (e.g., not be paragraphs styled to look indented).
Table headers must be tagged distinctly from regular cells and the table data must be tagged so that the rows and columns are identifiable.
Sidebars, figures and other encapsulated secondary content is tagged so that it distinct from the primary narrative.
Bolding and emphasis used to identify changes in voice, keywords, etc. are tagged using the appropriate markup.
Related form fields are grouped together (e.g., a set of radio button options).

But ensuring that a publication fully meets this requirement requires a thorough comparison of the visual rendering of the content against the underlying markup. The question to ask in each case is if the styling were removed, would the author intention still be understandable to a machine.

Additional Information

The following knowledge base pages provide more information about how to address this success criterion for publishing content: