See Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria for important information about the usage of these informative techniques and how they relate to the normative WCAG 2.0 success criteria. The Applicability section explains the scope of the technique, and the presence of techniques for a specific technology does not imply that the technology can be used in all situations to create content that meets WCAG 2.0.
All technologies.
This technique relates to:
Note: This technique must be combined with other techniques to meet SC 2.4.2. See Understanding SC 2.4.2 for details.
The objective of this technique is to give each Web page a descriptive title. Descriptive titles help users find content, orient themselves within it, and navigate through it. A descriptive title allows a user to easily identify what Web page they are using and to tell when the Web page has changed. The title can be used to identify the Web page without requiring users to read or interpret page content. Users can more quickly identify the content they need when accurate, descriptive titles appear in site maps or lists of search results. When descriptive titles are used within link text, they help users navigate more precisely to the content they are interested in.
The title of each Web page should:
Identify the subject of the Web page
Make sense when read out of context, for example by a screen reader or in a site map or list of search results
Be short
It may also be helpful for the title to
Identify the site or other resource to which the Web page belongs
Be unique within the site or other resource to which the Web page belongs
A Web page is published by a group within a larger organization. The title of the Web page first identifies the topic of the page, then shows the group name followed by the name of the parent organization.
Example Code:
<title>Working with us: The Small Group: The Big Organization</title>
A synchronized media presentation about the 2004 South Asian tsunami is titled “The Tsunami of 2004."
A Web page provides guidelines and suggestions for creating closed captions. The Web page is part of a “sub-site" within a larger site. The title is separated into three parts by dashes. The first part of the title identifies the organization. The second part identifies the sub-site to which the Web page belongs. The third part identifies the Web page itself. (For a working example, see WGBH – Media Access Group – Captioning FAQ.)
A Web site that only permits viewing of the current edition titles its Web page "National News, Front Page". A Web site that permits editions from different dates to be viewed titles its Web page, "National News, Front Page, Oct 17, 2005".
No resources available for this technique.
Check that the Web page has a title
Check that the title is relevant to the content of the Web page.
Check that the Web page can be identified using the title.
All checks above are true.
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.