About

Version: WCAG 2.1 and up
Number: 1.3.4
Level: AA
Applicability:
  • Fixed Layouts
Requirement:

Content does not restrict its view and operation to a single display orientation, such as portrait or landscape, unless a specific display orientation is essential.
Guidance:
Techniques: WCAG currently only includes the following undocumented techniques for this success criterion:
  • Using CSS to set the orientation to allow both landscape and portrait.
  • Use of show/hide controls to allow access to content in different orientations.

Purpose

The purpose of this success criterion is to ensure that users can read the content regardless of the orientation of their device. A user may not be able to change the orientation if the device is on a mount, for example.

How to Meet

To meet this success criterion, ensure that the content remains readable regardless of whether the device is in portrait or landscape orientation.

This success criterion typically is not an issue for reflowable content as, by nature, this type of content adapts to orientation changes.

Authors of fixed layouts, on the other hand, need to be careful not to restrict viewing to a single orientation.

Additional Information

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