Define words used in an unusual or restricted way
A word is unusual or restricted when one particular sense is the only one that makes your sentence work. It also counts when the sense you need is rare or archaic, or when you coined the meaning yourself. Jargon and idiom are in scope too. G101 asks you to give that word a definition where readers meet it, inline, in a linked glossary, or in a definition list. W3C lists it as a sufficient technique for 3.1.3 Unusual Words. That rule sits at Level AAA rather than at A or AA, so it is above the line most owners are working to, and we keep the guide filed with the 3.1 reading and language family because plain meaning is what that family protects. Sufficient is not the same as only. W3C documents four other routes to the same rule, and each one counts only when this technique is doing the defining underneath it.
How we find it in an audit
A scan can pull out the terms a site repeats and hand our reviewers a candidate list. That is where the machine stops. Judging which of those words carries a restricted sense is reading work, so our reviewers go through the key pages the way a first-time visitor would. They mark every term whose meaning cannot be recovered from the page itself. Then they look for the definition and check that a reader would genuinely find it.
How affected users experience it
A sighted reader who hits a strange word can glance around for a caption or a sidebar that settles it. Screen reader users get the sentence once, in order, with no way to look sideways. People with cognitive or learning disabilities, and readers working in a second language, hit the word and lose the thread. The definition has to sit on the path the reader is already traveling. Otherwise it does not exist for them.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
The first mention reads 'consideration (the payment or value exchanged to make the contract binding)', and the same wording appears in a linked glossary.
Fails
A tenancy agreement uses the word 'consideration' in its strict legal sense, and nothing on the page says what that sense is.
Other ways to satisfy this rule
7 guides on this site are filed under 3.1.3 Unusual Words. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule when it is implemented through a more specific technique, so the condition is part of the test rather than a footnote to it.
- G55sufficientLink unusual words to their definitions
- G62sufficientProvide a glossary for specialized terms
- G70sufficientOffer a dictionary search for specialized content
- G112sufficientDefine specialized terms inline where they appear
- H40sufficientMark up term-and-definition pairs as description lists
- H54sufficientMark the defining instance of a term with dfn
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G101: Providing the definition of a word or phrase used in an unusual or restricted way. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.