Title Tags for Pages and Frames

Accessibility Requirement #6
Last Updated: January 11, 2007
Author: Donald F. Evans

Table of Contents

  1. Priority
  2. Description
  3. More Info
  4. Coding/Best Practices
  5. Testing/QA
  6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  7. W3C Guidelines

Priority:

Required


Short Discription:

Windows MUST have clear titles. This is particularly important for Popup windows. Frames MUST have clear titles. Frame title should reflect nature of content. "Navigation Frame" is better than "Frame 1."


More Info:

Screen reader users may use the title of frames to help navigate the page. They can bring all the frame titles into a popup list and move easily from one section of the page to another. Also, unique page titles will help to identify exactly which page is currently being read. The screen reader will always anounce the title of the page first and then begin reading the rest of the page. It can be expecially helpful to have unique page titles when presented with a series of pages, like during a registration process.


Coding:

Best Practices:
None

Guidelines
Each page MUST HAVE a TITLE Tag.
Each FRAME tag MUST HAVE a TITLE attribute.
Each IFRAME tag MUST HAVE a TITLE attribute.

Example:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>A simple frameset document</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FRAMESET cols="10%, 90%" title="Our library of electronic documents"> 
	<FRAME src="nav.html" title="Navigation bar"> 
	<FRAME src="doc.html" title="Documents">
	<NOFRAMES>
		<A href="lib.html" title="Library link"> Select to go to the electronic library</A>
	</NOFRAMES>
</FRAMESET>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Testing:

Look at the pages title bar to be sure there is a meaningful title.

Screen Shot shows the placement of a title on a standard page.

Or you can also open the page in your browser
View the source.
Search for the word title.
Verify that the page has a properly coded HTML title tag.

Screen Shot shows HTML code with the TITLE tag being used.

Using the Toolbar to Test for Frame Titles

Screen Shot shows the Frame Name option on the AIS toolbar.

The results of the AIS toolbar test:

Screen Shot shows the results of the AIS test. Any title that is not specified appears on red.

Testing Frame Titles with Jaws.
Insert+F9 will bring up a list of frame titles. This is used to assist in navigation.

Screen shot shows the Jaws Frames List in a pop up window.>
<hr>

<h2><a name=SEO:

Titles of pages and of frames are indexed by search engines and must be present and meaningful.


W3C:

HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
Providing a frame title
Metadata (Title Element)

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