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Re: Headings and WCAG2 compliance (1.3.1) [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Apr 20, 2012 8:22AM

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 8:20 PM, Duff Johnson wrote:

>> The beauty of WCAG is that if you think it's a requirement, it can be.
>> If you don't think it's required, it's not.
>
> "Beauty", eh?
>
> OUCH! That's a really mean thing to say about a normative standard!

Duff prompted me to respond to this. The normative language of WCAG is
what matters. The listed techniques and failures are not normative,
but can help you determine conformance to the normative success
criteria. Techniques/failures are not binding - you could have a
failure yet still be conformant, for example.

In this case, we've documented how a logical heading structure might
be required and how it might not be required based on ones
interpretation of WCAG. If you think that logical headings are
required despite the fact that the supporting documentation doesn't
suggest this, then you should probably implement logical headings to
be WCAG conformant. If you don't think that logical headings are
required because there are no techniques/failures that require them,
then you should probably implement them anyway because they are good
for accessibility, but by your own interpretation, you aren't required
to in order to be WCAG conformant.

Jared