1.3.1 Info and Relationships: Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text.
This Success Criteria supports the accessibility principle of Perceivable because meeting this criterion ensures that users who are without vision or hearing, or who have limited vision, hearing, or language, cognitive, and learning abilities, will be able to understand any information and relationships being presented.
Relationships between content and elements on the screen are often provided visually in the way they are arranged on the screen. For example:
- Headings are often displayed in a larger or bolder font on their own lines.
- Items in a list are usually preceded by a bullet and the list is usually indented.
- Relationships between larger numbers of items may be shown in data tables with multiple rows, columns, and headings.
- Form fields have labels nearby, indicating the input that is expected, and may be grouped according to the information.
- Some form fields may have a different appearance or have indicators in their labels to show that they are required.
Auditory cues may also convey information. For example, if a passage is being read aloud, changes in tone of voice, pitch, or speech rate may be used to convey important information, identify that a different character is now speaking, etc.
The intent of the SC is to ensure that all users are made aware of all information and relationships presented no matter which method is used to convey them. This is accomplished by either providing the information and relationships in the underlying code, i.e., through programmatic means, or by making it available through text. If this is done correctly, this information will be available to AT (such as screen readers), and it will be available no matter which style sheet or other formatting are in effect.
Content that does not meet this SC may confuse or disorient users. For example:
- Form labels that are not properly referenced to their form fields cause users who depend on screen readers or other AT to become disoriented and unable to complete the form.
- Users who prefer to use a specific style sheet (such as one with high contrast) would find it confusing to have the application of the style also cause the visual arrangement of elements on the page to change.
Where possible, information and relationships should be programmatically determined. However, if the technology in use cannot convey the information that is provided programmatically, that information should be provided via text. For example, a plain text document can be formatted with double blank lines before titles, asterisks to indicate list items and other standard formatting conventions so that its structure can be programmatically determined.
Impact of Nonconformance with SC 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
| Type of Disability | Description of Impact |
|---|---|
| 302.1 Without Vision | Users who are blind cannot use a mouse to interact with electronic content and typically use an assistive technology, such as a screen reader, to get audible or other alternative output for the information represented visually. To be able to navigate the content, understand its structure and relationships, and understand the meaning of content represented in graphics and images, the content must provide textual and programmatic cues in addition to the content presented purely visually. |
| 302.2 With Limited Vision | Users with limited vision may have widely different visual perception. Individuals with limited vision may or may not use assistive technologies. Therefore, in addition to textual and programmatic cues necessary for assistive technologies, ICT must also present content consistently and predictably. Users who view content with magnifiers may not pick up alerts, warnings, or other content if such content is presented outside of a consistent and predictable navigation pattern or if the content is not itself viewable at large magnification. Content that becomes distorted when magnified can also prevent some users with limited vision from being able to understand or interact with the content. |
| 302.4 Without Hearing | When ICT provides information, instructions, or cues audibly, users who are deaf will not receive the information. Typically, providing the same information visibly (e.g., providing a warning light or textual dialog to accompany an audible warning sound or captions for audio dialog and other audible information in a video) will enable users who are deaf to get equivalent information. |
| 302.5 With Limited Hearing | Some users cannot hear sounds below certain volumes or at certain frequencies and may not be able hear certain audio outputs from ICT. Background noise can also be problematic for users with limited hearing. Providing modes of operation that enhance audio clarity (e.g., filtering out hisses and pops, blocking sounds at specific frequencies, normalizing voice volumes, removing constant tone patterns), increase the range of volume, increase volume at higher frequencies, and/or give users control over such settings can help users with limited hearing understand, navigate, and operate the ICT. Users with limited hearing may also benefit from some of the same methods used to provide information to users without hearing. |
| 302.9 With Limited Language, Cognitive, and Learning Abilities | Some users require more time than average to process information while others may find complicated instructions difficult to follow. Furthermore, some ICT content can distract or overwhelm users, preventing them from being able to interact with or understand other ICT content. Designers and developers of ICT must consider a broad range of cognitive abilities in order to provide ICT that is simple and easy to use. |
Applicability of Success Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
| Technology | Applicability of SC 1.3.1 |
|---|---|
| Web | Applies directly; Web developers can convey information, structure and relationships using various methods, depending on the Web content to be presented. For example, textual heading hierarchy relies on thethrough |
| Software | Applies directly; much like with Web, native software developers may use a combination of control types, parent-child relationships, and accessibility programming interface properties to denote structure and relationships between information/controls. Such information and relationships may be represented using accessibility programming interface properties. |
| Office Documents | Applies directly; to convey information, structure, and relationships, content authors in Office documents rely on built-in heading styles, bulleted or numbered lists, tables, and form control functionalities. Not all of the same structures and relationships are possible to convey in the same way that it is possible to convey in Web content. For example, tables in Office documents currently present some limitations in the ability to convey complex relationships between data cells and headers. |
| PDF documents | Applies directly; information, structure, and relationships in PDF documents are defined in the PDF “tag” structure, including tag or content types (e.g., headings, lists, tables) and related properties. |
| Mobile Native | Applies directly; much like with Web, mobile-native software developers may use a combination of control types, parent-child relationships, and accessibility programming interface properties to denote structure and relationships between information/controls. Such information and relationships may be represented using accessibility programming interface properties. |