HTML and XHTML documents that contain links.
This technique relates to:
The objective of this technique is to avoid unnecessary duplication that occurs when adjacent text and iconic versions of a link are contained in a document.
Many kinds of links have both a text and iconic link adjacent to each other. Often the text and the icon link are rendered in separate links, in part to create a slight visual separation from each other. Visually they appear to be the same link, but they are experienced by many people as two identical links and this can be confusing. To avoid this, some authors omit alternative text from the image, but this would fail Success Criterion 1.1.1 because the text alternative would not serve the same purpose as the graphical link. The preferred method to address this is to put the text and image together in one link, and provide null alternative text on the image to eliminate duplication of text.
Sometimes the text and the icon link are rendered in separate, adjacent table cells to facilitate page layout. Although WCAG 2 does not prohibit the use of layout tables, CSS-based layouts are recommended in order to retain the defined semantic meaning of the HTML table elements and to conform to the coding practice of separating presentation from content. If CSS is used, this technique can be applied to combine the links.
The icon and text are contained in the same a element.
Example Code:
<a href="products.html">
<img src="icon.gif" alt="" />
Products page
</a> A link contains an icon and text, and the site help refers to the icon. The
img has a text alternative which is the name used for the icon in the
site help, which describes clicking the home page icon.
Example Code:
<a href="foo.htm">
<img src="house.gif" alt="home page icon"/>
Go to the home page
</a> This example demonstrates a failure to apply this technique. An icon and text link are side by side. The text alternative for the image is the same as the text link beside it, leading to a "stutter" effect as the link is read twice.
Example Code:
<a href="products.html">
<img src="icon.gif" alt="Products page" />
</a>
<a href="products.html">
Products page
</a> This example demonstrates a failure to apply this technique. An icon and text link are side by side. In an attempt to remove the "stutter" the text alternative for the image is null. However, now one of the links has an unknown destination, which is its own link text problem.
Example Code:
<a href="products.html">
<img src="icon.gif" alt="" />
</a>
<a href="products.html">
Products page
</a> This example demonstrates an incorrect implementation of this technique. The icon and text are contained in the same a element. However, the text alternative for the icon is a duplicate of the link text, leading to a "stutter" effect as the description is read twice.
Example Code:
<a href="products.html">
<img src="products.gif" alt="Products page"/>
Products page
</a>
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For each a applying this technique:
Check that every img element contained within the a element has a null value set for its alt attribute.
Check that the a element contains text that is a description of the image
For each a in the content that is contained in a table:
All checks above are true.
If this is a sufficient technique for a success criterion, failing this test procedure does not necessarily mean that the success criterion has not been satisfied in some other way, only that this technique has not been successfully implemented and can not be used to claim conformance.
Techniques are informative—that means they are not required. The basis for determining conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the success criteria from the WCAG 2.0 standard—not the techniques. For important information about techniques, please see the Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria section of Understanding WCAG 2.0.