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Thread: mandatory Meta elements
Number of posts in this thread: 13 (In chronological order)
From: Trafford, Logan
Date: Wed, Jul 25 2012 9:06AM
Subject: mandatory Meta elements
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Is/are there any mandatory meta elements and/or metadata (other than <title>) needed for WCAG 2.0 AA conformance?
Logan Trafford
Team Lead, Web Services
Information Technology Services Department
City of Ottawa
613-580-2424 x13598
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From: Jared Smith
Date: Wed, Jul 25 2012 9:55AM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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2012/7/25 Trafford, Logan:
> Is/are there any mandatory meta elements and/or metadata (other than <title>) needed for WCAG 2.0 AA conformance?
The only related thing I can think of is defining the document
language (<html lang="en">). Defining the document type and character
set is also pretty important, though omitting these wouldn't be WCAG
failures.
Jared
From: Trafford, Logan
Date: Wed, Jul 25 2012 9:58AM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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Thanks Jared.
I know they (meta elements) are specifically mentioned in WCAG 1.0, but I don't see anything in WCAG 2.0.
p.s. counting down the days to training at the end of august! Arriving on the 25th and spending a couple of days in advance touring around and squeezing in some golf.
Logan
From: Duff Johnson
Date: Fri, Jul 27 2012 12:10PM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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On Jul 25, 2012, at 11:55 AM, Jared Smith wrote:
> 2012/7/25 Trafford, Logan:
>> Is/are there any mandatory meta elements and/or metadata (other than <title>) needed for WCAG 2.0 AA conformance?
>
> The only related thing I can think of is defining the document
> language (<html lang="en">). Defining the document type and character
> set is also pretty important, though omitting these wouldn't be WCAG
> failures.
How can omitting the character set be conforming? Or are you simply referring to the lack of a WG-published "Failure" on this point?
Duff.
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Fri, Jul 27 2012 12:17PM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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2012-07-27 21:10, Duff Johnson wrote:
> How can omitting the character set be conforming?
The character encoding ("charset" parameter) can and should be specified
at the transfer protocol level, in HTTP headers. And this isn't really
an accessibility issue, primarily; if the encoding information is not
supplied, or it is incorrect, things may go wrong in general, not just
in accessibility.
Yucca
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 8:11AM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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In a non-English speaking country/website, adding the lang element to
the header is all important for screen readers, else the screen reader
stats trying to read the page with an English TTS engine regardless of
the language.
This has become my #1 tip for quick fixes for foreign (non-English)
websites, so please keep its importance in mind. I am sure French
speaing Canadians may be a tad unhappy about how their English screen
reader tries to read french websites. ;)
(I know users can, and often should, turn off their language detection
in their screen reader, but most users are not expert and do not even
realize they can do this, I have had countless complaints of
inaccessible website, just for this reason alone).
Cheers
-B
On 7/27/12, Jukka K. Korpela < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> 2012-07-27 21:10, Duff Johnson wrote:
>
>> How can omitting the character set be conforming?
>
> The character encoding ("charset" parameter) can and should be specified
> at the transfer protocol level, in HTTP headers. And this isn't really
> an accessibility issue, primarily; if the encoding information is not
> supplied, or it is incorrect, things may go wrong in general, not just
> in accessibility.
>
> Yucca
>
> > > >
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 10:25AM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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2012-07-30 17:11, Birkir R. Gunnarsson wrote:
> In a non-English speaking country/website, adding the lang element to
> the header is all important for screen readers,
Please provide information about screen readers that actually pay
attention to lang attributes (they are attributes, not elements). As far
as I know, such behavior is very limited, but things may have changed.
I don't think the issue has anything to do with meta elements or with
the previous topic of the discussion, which was:
>>> How can omitting the character set be conforming?
Yucca
From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 10:40AM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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Hi the lang attribute I am refering to is in the header of the page,
not in individual parts of the page (in that respect screen readers do
not do a great job), but I haae often seen page headers that read
"lang=en_us" when page text is in Icelandic, and Jaws and Dolphin at
least both try to read the Icelandic text on the page with the English
synth and pronounciation rules.
So, in my opinion, that belonged in this discussion, plus it was
already mentioned earlier. If that is not consistent, I do appologize.
It is just an issue I have seen frequently, and I felt it migh an
opportnity to bring people's attention to this matter.
On 7/30/12, Jukka K. Korpela < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> 2012-07-30 17:11, Birkir R. Gunnarsson wrote:
>
>> In a non-English speaking country/website, adding the lang element to
>> the header is all important for screen readers,
>
> Please provide information about screen readers that actually pay
> attention to lang attributes (they are attributes, not elements). As far
> as I know, such behavior is very limited, but things may have changed.
>
> I don't think the issue has anything to do with meta elements or with
> the previous topic of the discussion, which was:
>
>>>> How can omitting the character set be conforming?
>
> Yucca
>
>
> > > >
From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 11:05AM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Jukka K. Korpela < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Please provide information about screen readers that actually pay
> attention to lang attributes (they are attributes, not elements). As far
> as I know, such behavior is very limited, but things may have changed.
JAWS for one.
http://yaccessibilityblog.com/library/add-language-declarations-for-multilingual-pages.html
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
From: Paul J. Adam
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 11:27AM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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VoiceOver & NVDA support automatic language switching as well when the HTML is tagged correctly. I like to demo that feature when showing off iOS accessibility.
Paul J. Adam
Accessibility Evangelist
Deque Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.PaulJAdam.com
@pauljadam on Twitter
On Jul 30, 2012, at 12:05 PM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Jukka K. Korpela < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>> Please provide information about screen readers that actually pay
>> attention to lang attributes (they are attributes, not elements). As far
>> as I know, such behavior is very limited, but things may have changed.
>
> JAWS for one.
>
> http://yaccessibilityblog.com/library/add-language-declarations-for-multilingual-pages.html
>
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
> > >
From: Bim Egan
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 12:23PM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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Hi,
Supernova is another screen reader that has multiple language support. It's
possible that most of them do to avoid the need to purchase different
language versions for multi-lingual users. In tests I've found that no
screen readers ignore the LANG attribute of the HTML element, but looking
this up, it appears that W3C noted a META tag method for language
identification in HTML 4.0:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" Content="en">
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-html-lan
In the event of no language being identified for a web document, a screen
reader can only use its default language pronunciation rules. If the text
is in a different language from the default, the content wouldn't be
understood, even by someone fluent in both languages. As the identification
of the human language for a document is a level A requirement of WCAG 2.0,
I'd say it was essential.
On the issue of CHARSET, I agree it doesn't make a great deal of difference
visually, though the page may not render correctly and have some random odd
characters like A circumflex or Euro symbol. Easy enough to ignore
visually, but screen readers will announce them all out loud, even when they
interfere with the text flow.
For functional accessibility I'd have both of these META elements in every
page template.
HTH,
Bim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul J. Adam" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2012 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] mandatory Meta elements
VoiceOver & NVDA support automatic language switching as well when the HTML
is tagged correctly. I like to demo that feature when showing off iOS
accessibility.
Paul J. Adam
Accessibility Evangelist
Deque Systems
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
www.PaulJAdam.com
@pauljadam on Twitter
On Jul 30, 2012, at 12:05 PM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Jukka K. Korpela < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>> Please provide information about screen readers that actually pay
>> attention to lang attributes (they are attributes, not elements). As far
>> as I know, such behavior is very limited, but things may have changed.
>
> JAWS for one.
>
> http://yaccessibilityblog.com/library/add-language-declarations-for-multilingual-pages.html
>
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
> > >
From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 2:53PM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 7:23 PM, Bim Egan < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> In tests I've found that no
> screen readers ignore the LANG attribute of the HTML element, but looking
> this up, it appears that W3C noted a META tag method for language
> identification in HTML 4.0:
>
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" Content="en">
> http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-html-lan
>
> In the event of no language being identified for a web document, a screen
> reader can only use its default language pronunciation rules. If the text
> is in a different language from the default, the content wouldn't be
> understood, even by someone fluent in both languages. As the identification
> of the human language for a document is a level A requirement of WCAG 2.0,
> I'd say it was essential.
You just need @lang on <html>, you don't need a <meta> element. You
can use @lang again whenever the content changes language within the
text.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
From: Bim Egan
Date: Mon, Jul 30 2012 3:35PM
Subject: Re: mandatory Meta elements
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Hi Benjamin,
Absolutely right, and this is the method I've always used, I just wanted to
flag up that @lang can be defined as a META tag too.
Cheers,
Bim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2012 9:53 PM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] mandatory Meta elements
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 7:23 PM, Bim Egan < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> In tests I've found that no
> screen readers ignore the LANG attribute of the HTML element, but looking
> this up, it appears that W3C noted a META tag method for language
> identification in HTML 4.0:
>
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" Content="en">
> http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-html-lan
>
> In the event of no language being identified for a web document, a screen
> reader can only use its default language pronunciation rules. If the text
> is in a different language from the default, the content wouldn't be
> understood, even by someone fluent in both languages. As the
> identification
> of the human language for a document is a level A requirement of WCAG 2.0,
> I'd say it was essential.
You just need @lang on <html>, you don't need a <meta> element. You
can use @lang again whenever the content changes language within the
text.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis