Add top-of-page links to each content area
G124 opens a page with a short list of links, one to each area of the content. A reader goes straight to the section they want instead of traveling through the ones they do not, and activating a link sets focus into that section. It earns its keep on pages built from many independent parts, such as a portal or a long service page, and it sits alongside other skipping techniques rather than replacing them. W3C lists it as sufficient for 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks at Level A, on the same condition as the other link-based route. This looks like a table of contents, and it is filed elsewhere for a reason. A table of contents that gives readers a second way to find a page belongs to 2.4.5 Multiple Ways. The same list, used to jump past blocks on the page you are already on, is a bypass mechanism and belongs here.
How we find it in an audit
Presence is checkable by machine. Usefulness is not. Our reviewers confirm the links sit near the top, then activate each one from the keyboard and check that focus lands inside the target section rather than the page merely scrolling to it. We read the link text on its own as well, because a list of section links is exactly what a screen reader user pulls up out of context.
How affected users experience it
A screen reader user landing on a long government page cannot see how many sections there are or where each one starts. Read from the top and the answer arrives twenty minutes later. A list of section links gives them the shape of the page in one pass, plus a direct route into any part of it. That is the same glance a sighted reader gets for free.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
The page opens with links labeled 'Apply', 'Required documents', 'Fees' and 'Contact', and each one moves focus into its section.
Fails
A long government services page offers no way to reach its sections except scrolling and tabbing through everything above them.
How this gets tested
The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.
- Bypass Blocks of Repeated ContentA tool finds candidates, you decide
- Document has heading for non-repeated contentNothing implements this yet
- Document has a landmark with non-repeated contentA tool can check this
- Block of repeated content is collapsibleNothing implements this yet
- Document has an instrument to move focus to non-repeated contentNothing implements this yet
Other ways to satisfy this rule
10 guides on this site are filed under 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule when used for creating links to skip blocks of repeated material, so the condition is part of the test rather than a footnote to it.
- ARIA11sufficientAdd landmarks so users can skip around
- G1sufficientAdd a skip link as the first element on the page
- G123sufficientAdd skip links past repeated content blocks
- H64sufficientGive every iframe a descriptive title
- H69sufficientStart every content section with a real heading
- PDF9sufficientTag PDF headings with real heading tags
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G124: Adding links at the top of the page to each area of the content. 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.