CSS position: causes meaningless sequence Accessibility Checkpoint

Description

CSS positioning can make pages unreadable when layout order doesn’t match DOM order.

Help

Absolutely positioned items on this page appear in a different visual order to the screen reader reading order which is based on the DOM order.

Applicable standards

• WCAG 2.0 F1 (Success Criteria: 1.3.2 level A)
• WCAG 2.1 F1 (Success Criteria: 1.3.2 level A)
• WCAG 2.2 F1 (Success Criteria: 1.3.2 level A)
• Section 508 (2017) F1 (Success Criteria: 1.3.2 level A)

Note: Section 508 Refresh (2017) checkpoints are equivalent to WCAG 2.0 level A and level AA checkpoints.

Change history

• 6.48 Mar 2023 Fixed false positive on hidden elements.
• 5.37 May 2020 Improved detection. Changed rule ID from AccWcag1-6.1.1 to AccCssMeaninglessSequence.
• 5.22 Jul 2016 Fixed false positive on print media.
• 5.21 Mar 2016 Fixed false positive on SharePoint sites.
• 5.3 Sep 2013 Fixed false positive.
• 4.2 Dec 2010 Don’t fire for position:absolute when used without co-ordinates (i.e. as holder for other relative items).
• 3.5 Dec 2009 Don’t fire when used to hide accessible text offscreen.
• 3.0 Dec 2008 Now triggers WCAG2 issue.
• 2.0 Dec 2007 Now triggers Section 508 issue.
• 1.0 Feb 2007 Added.

This page describes a web site issue detected in HTML documents by SortSite Desktop and OnDemand Suite.

Rule ID: AccCssMeaninglessSequence