Define specialized terms inline where they appear
An inline definition is a definition delivered in the running text, just before or just after the word. Same sentence, or the one next to it. G112 is that delivery method, and it matters because the reader never has to leave the sentence to find out what the word means. Read the status carefully. W3C lists it against 3.1.3 Unusual Words at Level AAA and hedges twice over, calling it sufficient through a more specific technique and only when used together with G101, the technique that requires the definition in the first place. So this is the how, not the whether. On its own it is a writing pattern rather than a route through the rule. The pages that pass are the ones where somebody decided which words needed defining, then defined them here.
How we find it in an audit
A scan can flag the vocabulary a page leans on, and the rest is reading. Our reviewers go through the key pages marking terms whose sense a first-time visitor could not recover. Then we check whether the definition arrives in the text right there or whether the reader gets sent somewhere else for it. Both can pass. Only one of them keeps the reader in place.
How affected users experience it
Following a definition link means leaving the page, hearing the entry, then finding the way back to the exact sentence. On a screen reader that is several steps and a lost position. Readers with cognitive disabilities pay a different version of the same cost, because the trip out and back is where the thread of the argument goes. A definition inside the sentence costs them nothing at all.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
The sentence carries its own definition, reading 'blind bake the shell (bake the empty crust before adding filling) for 15 minutes'.
Fails
A recipe says 'blind bake the shell' and takes for granted that every reader knows the trade term.
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 only alongside G101, so the pair is what passes and neither half does on its own.
- G55sufficientLink unusual words to their definitions
- G62sufficientProvide a glossary for specialized terms
- G70sufficientOffer a dictionary search for specialized content
- G101sufficientDefine words used in an unusual or restricted way
- 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 G112: Using inline definitions. 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.