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Re: which guideline to empty headers go against?

for

From: Bim Egan
Date: Nov 22, 2016 1:40AM


I'd say this is a definite fail of SC 2.4.6: Headings and labels describe
topic or purpose, [1]. No text content means no description.

Empty headings probably also fail SC1.3.1 Info and Relationships [2] check
out Failure Technique F43: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 due to using
structural markup in a way that does not represent relationships in the
content [3]

HTH,

Bim
[1] - SC2.4.6 (Level AA)
http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-descriptive.
html
[2] - SC1.3.1 (Level A)
http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/content-structure-separation-progr
ammatic.html
[3] - Technique F43
http://www.w3.org/TR/2016/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20161007/F43

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf
Of Angela French
Sent: 21 November 2016 23:33
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] which guideline to empty headers go against?

Our editors are inadvertently inserting them when using our CMS and the
built-in accessibility checker (based on a.checker) is not flagging them.
I'm trying to communicate with our CMS support person that it should.

Angela French

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf
Of JP Jamous
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2016 3:29 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] which guideline to empty headers go against?

It does not violate any WCAG SC, but it is a bad UX. If I reach this with a
screen reader and it says nothing, I am going to conclude one of 2 things.

1. Either it has a background image loading from a CSS file Or 2. Some
stupid developer forgot it there, which is bad coding.

You can use a couple of level A SC against it.

1. There is an error with the web site code.
2. It was not made with accessibility in mind.

I forgot the exact SC numbers for those but they are both level A SCs.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf
Of Angela French
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2016 5:21 PM
To: WebAim Forum ( <EMAIL REMOVED> )
< <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] which guideline to empty headers go against?

I have always considered it an accessibility issue for a page to have empty
headings such as <h2>&nbsp;</h2>

Does this break any particular guideline?

Angela French
Internet/Intranet Specialist
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
<EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;

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