State in text what styling alone conveys
Sometimes a change in how text looks is doing a job. Bold marks the required courses. Italics mark the discontinued products, a different face marks the quoted passage. G117 says that whenever a variation in presentation carries information, the same information has to be available in text as well, either in the sentence or somewhere the reader will reach it. W3C lists this as sufficient for 1.3.1 Info and Relationships at Level A, with no conditions, so on its own it settles the rule for the content it covers. The failing version has its own entry in W3C's records. It is filed as a way of breaking 1.3.1 by using a change in text presentation to carry information with neither the markup nor the words to back it up.
How we find it in an audit
A scan cannot tell decorative bold from meaningful bold, so our reviewers read for it. The tell is usually a legend explaining what the styling means. The fix is to move that meaning into the item itself. Tables and catalogs are where this hides. So are schedules and price lists.
How affected users experience it
Most screen readers do not announce bold, italics or a change of font by default. The users who can switch that on mostly do not, because on a normal page it turns every emphasis into an interruption. So a reader hears the course list with nothing marking the prerequisites, and no reason to suspect anything was marked. It is not that the cue is hard to catch. It was never sent.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
Each prerequisite is bold and also labeled in the text, reading 'Biology 101 (prerequisite)'.
Fails
A course catalog notes that 'courses shown in bold are prerequisites', and the bolding is the only thing marking them.
How this gets tested
The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.
- ARIA attribute is defined in WAI-ARIAA tool can check this
- ARIA state or property has valid valueA tool can check this
- Element with role attribute has required states and propertiesA tool can check this
- Form field has non-empty accessible nameA tool can check this
- Headers attribute specified on a cell refers to cells in the same table elementA tool can check this
- Role attribute has valid valueA tool can check this
- ARIA global properties not used where prohibitedA tool can check this
- ARIA required context roleA tool can check this
- ARIA required owned elementsA tool can check this
- ARIA state or property is permittedA tool can check this
- Table header cell has assigned cellsA tool can check this
Other ways to satisfy this rule
52 guides on this site are filed under 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule on its own. Implement it correctly, in a way your readers' software actually supports, and the rule is met.
- ARIA11sufficientAdd landmarks so users can skip around
- ARIA12sufficientUse role=heading when h1-h6 is impossible
- ARIA13sufficientName repeated landmarks so they are distinguishable
- ARIA16sufficientName controls from visible text with aria-labelledby
- ARIA17sufficientGroup related form fields with ARIA roles
- ARIA20sufficientMark leftover page areas with role=region
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G117: Using text to convey information that is conveyed by variations in presentation of text. 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.