Web Accessibility Checker : Check Details

Element

Error Type

Likely

Guidelines

WCAG 2.0 (Level A)
1.3 Ensure that information and structure can be separated from presentation
Success Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A)
WCAG 2.0 (Level AA)
1.3 Adaptable: Create content that can be presented in different ways (for example simpler layout) without losing information or structure.
Success Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A)
WCAG 2.0 (Level AAA)
1.3 Adaptable: Create content that can be presented in different ways without losing information or structure.
Success Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A)

Requirement

All p elements are not used as headers.

Error

p element may be misused (could be a header).

Short Description

All p element content must not be marked with either b, i, u, strong, font, em.

How To Determine

Question	Should this text be marked as a header?
PASS	Text is not a header, current markup is OK.
FAIL	Text is a header, markup should change.

Steps To Check

Procedure

1. Check the contents of all p elements in the document.
2. Check if all the text contained by the p element is marked with presentational elements.
3. Presentational elements include the elements b, i, u, strong, span, font, and em.
4. If all the text is marked with a presentational element then determine if the text might be better marked as a header.

Expected Result

1. All p elements are not used as headers.

Failed Result

1. Remove the p element and replace it with the appropriate header element.

Examples

Pass Examples

Paragraph with unmarked text.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>OAC Testfile - Check #82 - Negative</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is a regular paragraph</p>
</body>
</html>

Fail Examples

Paragraph with all text marked as "strong".

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>OAC Testfile - Check #82 - Positive</title>
</head>
<body>
<p><strong>Looks like a header</strong></p>
</body>
</html>