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Re: WCAG 2.0 validation

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Dec 2, 2014 2:03PM

Angela

Is a missing heading a WCAG violation?
1.3.1 does not specifically say that skipping a heading level is a violation.
It recommends using appropriate heading levels in its examples and
non-normative text, and it specifies that if text is in place of a
heading and formatted visually as a heading that it should be a
heading, but I have never failed a webpage on 1.3.1 due to missing
heading levels.

In fact, I believe there are cases where skipping a heading level may
be appropriate, such as an author's note or dedication, or text
transcriber note.
Customarily this type of information is located before chapter 1 in a
book, but definitely are less important than the chapter titles.
Here we assume the book title is an h1 and chapter titles are h2s.

Of course that is not what you asked, there may be reasons such as
specific customer needs, that forbid missing heading levels, (NFB NVA
certification requires this).

So I would not get my hopes up for achecker (or any standard WCAG
checker) to downright call out a violation for this, though they may
provide warnings.
Also, you need to consier ARIA headings.
<span role="heading" aria-level="3">This is the equivalent of an h3
heading</span>
This is legitimate code (even if I always try to encourage developers
to just use a heading), and checkers need to consider this as a
possibility.
Cheers
-B


On 12/2/14, Angela French < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Should this validation checker find missing headings ?
>
> http://achecker.ca/checker/index.php
>
> For example:
>
> h1
> h2
> h4 (there was no h3)
> h2
>
>
>
>
> Angela French
> Internet Specialist
> State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
> 360-704-4316
> <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com>;
> www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu>;
>
> > > >


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