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What success criteria does empty headings violate?

for

From: Robert Fentress
Date: Jan 30, 2018 7:14AM

If you have an empty heading tag, which, if any, WCAG success criteria do
you feel this violates? I think it should be viewed as violating WCAG SC
2.4.6 Headings and Labels
<https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-descriptive.html>
(as
does WAVE), since an empty heading cannot describe any "topic or
purpose" but it is, nonetheless, semantically, a heading. Some other very
knowledgable people disagree, considering this to be merely a violation of
best practice. Others may also think it violates WCAG SC 1.3.1 Information
and Relationships
<https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/content-structure-separation-programmatic.html>
(such
as WAVE, HTML Code_Sniffer and SiteImprove), and even WCAG SC 2.4.1 Bypass
Blocks
<https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/navigation-mechanisms-skip.html>
(such
as WAVE), but those are probably more of stretch, in my opinion. What do
you think?

--
Rob Fentress
Senior Accessibility Solutions Designer
Assistive Technologies at Virginia Tech
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