Technique H25:Providing a title using the title element

Applicability

HTML and XHTML

This technique relates to 2.4.2: Page Titled (Sufficient when used with G88: Providing descriptive titles for Web pages).

Description

All HTML and XHTML documents, including those in individual frames in a frameset, have a title element in the head section that defines in a simple phrase the purpose of the document. This helps users to orient themselves within the site quickly without having to search for orientation information in the body of the page.

Note that the (mandatory) title element, which only appears once in a document, is different from the title attribute, which may be applied to almost every HTML and XHTML element.

Examples

Example 1

This example defines a document's title.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">   
   <head>     
      <title>The World Wide Web Consortium</title>     
   </head>   
   <body>     
      ...   
   </body> 
</html>

Other sources

No endorsement implied.

Tests

Procedure

  1. Examine the source code of the HTML or XHTML document and check that a non-empty title element appears in the head section.
  2. Check that the title element describes the document.

Expected Results

  • Checks 1 and 2 are true.

Test Rules

The following are Test Rules related to this Technique. It is not necessary to use these particular Test Rules to check for conformance with WCAG, but they are defined and approved test methods. For information on using Test Rules, see Understanding Test Rules for WCAG Success Criteria.