ACT Rule 9bd38c · proposed
Content has alternative for visual reference
"The button on the right" is only an instruction if you can see the page. So is "the green box". This rule checks that content identified by a visual reference is also identified some other way, by name, by label, or by something a screen reader will read out.
A tool can find the places this applies and then hand you the decision. The rule is proposed, so it has not yet been implemented in full by a tool and reviewed by a W3C working group, and the wording can still change.
What passing this rule proves
When this rule fails, 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics is not satisfied, and that half is certain. When it passes, W3C's own outcome mapping says the criterion still needs further testing. So a green result here is evidence that one specific thing is not broken, and it is the answer W3C gives on 59 of its 87 live rules.
The rule finds visual reference words and looks for an alternative nearby. Whether that alternative actually lets somebody follow the instruction is a reading job. The criterion covers shape, size, sound and position too, so a person has to read the page asking, at every instruction, whether it still works with the visuals gone.
The criteria this rule is a test for
These are the criteria the rule names as its own conformance requirement. Each one is a far bigger question than this rule asks, and our page for it sets out what the whole criterion covers.
- 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics Level A
The normative rule text lives at W3C
What the rule applies to, and exactly what it expects, is published by W3C and can change. We link to it rather than restate it, so nothing here can quietly fall out of date against the source. Read rule 9bd38c at W3C.
Instructions cannot rely only on how things look
Press the green button on the right tells you nothing if you cannot see color, position, or the screen at all. The information is real but it is carried in a way that not everyone receives.
The fix is not to remove the visual cue. It is to add something that does not depend on sight, usually the control's own name.
Form help that points at shapes or places rather than labels uses instructions like the box below, the icon on the left, the field marked in red. Users who cannot see cannot follow these instructions.
Fixes that satisfy it
If this rule fails on your site, these are the techniques that put it right.
All 87 ACT rules are grouped by the criteria they test, and 24 of them decide nothing about WCAG on their own. Run a free scan to see which of these your own pages trip.