Offer longer session limits before forms begin
G133 puts a checkbox on the first page of a multipart form that lets the user ask for a longer session limit, or for none at all. The point is to settle the question before anyone has typed anything, rather than after the clock has already taken their work. W3C allows either shape, a specific extension such as fifteen minutes or an open-ended one. It adds a sensible caution. An indefinite session is a bad idea where it would put privacy or network security at risk. This is a sufficient technique for 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable at Level A, and it is one of the few in its neighborhood that genuinely belongs there rather than at a higher level. It applies to content that includes multipart forms, so a one-page form with no session behind it is out of scope.
How we find it in an audit
Our reviewers look for the offer first, on the first page, before any data entry. Then we check that it does something. A checkbox that sets a flag nobody reads is the common failure, so we tick it, work slowly through the form, and see whether the session actually survives the original limit. The wording gets checked too, because 'extend my session' means nothing without saying what the limit is.
How affected users experience it
Every timeout is set from an estimate of how long a form takes, and that estimate is almost never made with a switch device, a screen reader, or a magnifier in the room. Someone reading a six-step visa application through speech may need three times the budget. They lose everything at step four, having done nothing wrong, and the site has no idea it happened. Asking at the start costs one checkbox.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
Step one offers 'I need more time, extend my session' before any data entry begins, and ticking it genuinely lengthens the limit.
Fails
A six-step visa application times out after 20 minutes flat, so slower applicants lose everything at step four.
How this gets tested
The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.
- Meta element has no refresh delayA tool can check this
- Meta element has no refresh delay (no exception)A tool can check this
Other ways to satisfy this rule
11 guides on this site are filed under 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable. 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.
- G4sufficientLet users pause moving content and resume it
- G180sufficientLet users extend time limits tenfold
- G198sufficientLet users switch time limits off entirely
- SCR1sufficientLet users extend a script's time limit
- SCR16sufficientWarn users before a time limit runs out
- SCR33sufficientGive scrolling content a pause and a resume
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G133: Providing a checkbox on the first page of a multipart form that allows users to ask for longer session time limit or no session time limit. 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.