W3C

DRAFT DOCUMENT

This is a draft document supplied by the WCAG Techniques Task Force. It in no way represents a WCAG Working Group consensus or agreement and is provided for informational and discussion purposes only. The accessibility tests listed below should not be construed as required for conformance with the proposed WCAG2.

HTML Test Suite for WCAG 2.0
Sorted by Priority Level

W3C Editor's Draft 2005-08-11

Editors:
Chris Ridpath, ATRC, University Of Toronto
Jenae Andershonis, Microsoft Inc.

Abstract

This document provides information to Web content developers who wish to make their content comply with the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" [WCAG20] (currently an Editor's Draft). It includes test cases, code examples, and references to help authors test for compliance. The tests in this document are specific to Hypertext Markup Language content [HTML4], [XHTML1] although some tests may contain references to other W3C technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets [CSS1]. HTML Web content complies with the WCAG 2.0 if it passes all the appropriate tests in this document. If HTML Web content fails one or more of these tests then it does not conform to the WCAG 2.0

Note: WCAG 2.0 is an Editor's Draft and the cross-references between success criteria and tests are not fully established.

This document will be part of a series of documents published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to support WCAG 2.0.

Status of this Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

Publication as an Editor's Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document is prepared by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG) to show how the HTML Test Suite for WCAG 2.0 might read. This draft is not yet based on consensus of the WCAG Working Group nor has it gone through W3C process. The WCAG WG intends to publish this as a Conformance Test Suite at the same time or soon after WCAG 2.0 becomes a Recommendation.

The Working Group welcomes comments on this document at public-comments-wcag20. The archives for this list are publicly available.

This document has been produced as part of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The goals of the WCAG WG are discussed in the Working Group charter. The WCAG WG is part of the WAI Technical Activity.

Introduction

This is the HTML Test Suite for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). The guidelines provide a generic description of the requirements for a Web site that is accessible to people with disabilities. The HTML test suite provides a method for testing conformance to these guidelines. This test suite represents the best thinking of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and as such is the only method for testing conformance to WCAG 2.0. The Working Group strongly encourages authors to use this test suite. Additionally the Working Group strongly encourages manufacturers of authoring tools to support the process of authoring content that conforms to this test suite, and encourages manufacturers or user agents, including assistive technologies, to implement the behaviors described by these tests.

This test suite is not perfect and will be updated periodically to accommodate new practices in creating accessible web content.

These tests are intended for use both with HTML 4.01 and with XHTML 1.0/1.1. To encourage migration to newer technologies, examples used in the tests are XHTML unless there is a specific reason to present an HTML example. Some references have not yet been updated to point preferentially to XHTML. This will be adjusted in a future draft of this document.

Note: Tests in this document are known to contain errors. The purpose of this document is to receive feedback about the content of the tests to ensure that future drafts are more accurate and useful. These tests should not yet be implemented by people attempting to attain WCAG 2 conformance at this time.

Each test in the suite is given a status as part of the conformance test process. Only tests that have received a status of 'closed' will be used as part of the final test suite.


Sort Order

Listed below is the HTML test suite sorted by priority level. The test suite may also be viewed sorted by guideline or HTML element.


Priority - Level 1

a

area

doctype

form

frame

h1

h2

h3

h4

h5

h6

html

img

input

legend

p

table


Priority - Level 2

a

area

img

marquee

ol

select


Priority - Level 3

frame

title

Valid XHTML 1.0!