Providing text alternatives on applet elements

Important Information about Techniques

See Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria for important information about the usage of these informative techniques and how they relate to the normative WCAG 2.2 success criteria. The Applicability section explains the scope of the technique, and the presence of techniques for a specific technology does not imply that the technology can be used in all situations to create content that meets WCAG 2.2.

Applicability

HTML and XHTML Documents that load Java applets where applet is not deprecated.

This technique relates to Success Criterion 1.1.1: Non-text Content (Sufficient).

Description

Provide a text alternative for an applet by using the alt attribute to label an applet and providing the text alternative in the body of the applet element. In this technique, both mechanisms are required due to the varying support of the alt attribute and applet body text by user agents.

Examples

Example 1: An applet to play the tic-tac-toe game. 

<applet code="tictactoe.class" width="250" height="250" alt="tic-tac-toe game">
   tic-tac-toe game
</applet>

Tests

Procedure

  1. View the source code of the applet element
  2. Check that the applet element contains an alt attribute with a text alternative for the applet
  3. Check that the applet element contains a text alternative for the applet in the body of the applet element

Expected Results

  • Checks #2 and #3 are true.