Show each page's place in its collection
G127 asks you to make clear how the page a reader is on relates to the pages around it. A chapter inside a handbook. Step four of a seven-step application. You can do it programmatically, through the rel attribute on a link element, or by carrying the relationship in the page title where every reader meets it. Read the status carefully, because it is not the same at both rules. W3C lists G127 as advisory for 2.4.2 Page Titled, the Level A rule this page is filed under, and advisory means the working group recommends the practice and does not accept it as evidence you conformed. Doing this does not pass 2.4.2. Where it is sufficient is 2.4.8 Location, at Level AAA. Treat it as a real improvement to a descriptive title rather than as the thing that makes the title pass.
How we find it in an audit
Our reviewers read the title of every key page cold, with the rest of the site out of view, and ask whether it says where the reader has landed. Bookmarks, browser tabs, search results and screen reader announcements all show the title alone. That is the condition it has to survive. Where a page belongs to an ordered set, we check whether its position in that set is anywhere in the title.
How affected users experience it
The page title is the first thing a screen reader announces on load. For someone with a dozen tabs open it is the only thing separating one from another. A title reading 'Chapter 3' says nothing about which document they are in or how far through it they have got. Adding the collection costs a few words and answers both questions before the page has begun.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
The title reads 'Chapter 3, Wiring. Installer Handbook', placing the page inside its collection everywhere the title is shown.
Fails
A page is titled just 'Chapter 3', so search results, bookmarks and browser tabs give no clue which book it belongs to.
How this gets tested
The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.
- HTML page has non-empty titleA tool can check this
- HTML page title is descriptiveA tool can check this
The other techniques filed under this rule
5 guides on this site are filed under 2.4.2 Page Titled. W3C lists this one as advisory for that rule rather than sufficient, which means it helps real readers without being accepted as evidence you conformed.
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G127: Identifying a web page's relationship to a larger collection of web pages. 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.