Web Development
Web Developer Guidelines
Visual Design Recommendations

Checkpoint 5.5 - Core

Images used as list bullets are specified in the CSS stylesheet and not in the HTML of the web page

WCAG 1.0 Priority 1

WCAG Guideline 1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.

Many web designers create their own list bullet styles to improve the visual appearance of a web page content. In such cases images used as bullets should be called in through the , instead of placing them directly into the HTML lists. This separates HTML document structure from presentation and removes the need to place alt attributes on each of the list bullet images.

Requirement

Use to format visual appearance of list bullets.

Example

ul { list-style: url(bullet.gif) disc }

Checking Tool

  • Internet Explorer - AIS Toolbar: Images > Toggle Image > Alt
    This will turn all images off replacing them with the values of the alt attributes except for background images. Make sure images used as bullets are shown as background images.
  • Firefox - Web Developer's Toolbar: Images > Outline Images > Background Images

Information Source

The original source of this information is located on the W3C web site  (www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-TECHS/#tech-text-equivalent)

 

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