Identify items by more than shape or position
Press the round button. Use the list on the right. Click the green icon. G96 says keep all of those and add something that does not depend on seeing or hearing, usually the item's name or its function. W3C counts it as sufficient for the sensory-characteristics rule at Level A, and it is the only technique listed for that rule, which makes it the documented route rather than one option among several. What people misread is that this is not a ban on saying on the right. Position, shape, size and color are all still welcome. They simply cannot be the only handle on the thing. Press the round button labeled Go carries both, and it works whether or not you can see the shape.
How we find it in an audit
We search the content for sensory references, which is a mechanical first pass looking for words like right, left, above, below, round, square and the color names. Then a reviewer reads each hit in place and asks whether the sentence identifies the thing any other way. Instructions, error messages, help text and onboarding tours are where these cluster. Printed instructions describing a screen are the worst offenders, because nobody goes back to those when the layout changes.
How affected users experience it
On the right means nothing to somebody hearing the page rather than seeing it, and the page they are moving through is linear anyway. Round and green mean nothing either. So the instruction arrives complete and useless, which is its own particular frustration, because they can tell the answer has just been given to somebody else. Add the label and the same sentence works for everybody, including the sighted reader on a phone where nothing is on the right any more.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
Press Next, the arrow button on the right. A name for everyone, and the position as a bonus for the people it helps.
Fails
To continue, use the arrow on the right. No name, no label, and position as the only identifier offered.
How this gets tested
The W3C publishes test rules that define what a checker looks for here.
- Content has alternative for visual referenceA tool finds candidates, you decide
Other ways to satisfy this rule
3 guides on this site are filed under 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics. 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.
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G96: Providing textual identification of items that otherwise rely only on sensory information to be understood. 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.