Rgaa Mandatory Elements

RGAA Mandatory Elements Accessibility Audit (Theme 8)

Audits a web page against the 10 criteria of RGAA v4.1.2 Theme 8: Mandatory Elements.

Audit procedure

Step 1: Gather page metadata

javascriptCopy code
(() => {
  const html = document.documentElement;
  const results = {
    doctype: document.doctype ? `<!DOCTYPE ${document.doctype.name}>` : null,
    htmlLang: html.getAttribute('lang'),
    htmlXmlLang: html.getAttribute('xml:lang'),
    htmlDir: html.getAttribute('dir'),
    title: document.title,
    charset: document.characterSet,
    metaCharset: document.querySelector('meta[charset]')?.getAttribute('charset'),

    // Language changes
    langChanges: [],

    // Tags used for presentation only
    presentationTags: {
      hasInlineStyles: document.querySelectorAll('[style]').length,
      bTags: document.querySelectorAll('b').length,
      iTags: document.querySelectorAll('i').length,
      sTags: document.querySelectorAll('s').length,
      uTags: document.querySelectorAll('u').length,
      fontTags: document.querySelectorAll('font').length,
      centerTags: document.querySelectorAll('center').length,
      bigTags: document.querySelectorAll('big').length,
      smallUsedForStyle: 0,
      brSequences: 0
    },

    // Direction changes
    dirChanges: []
  };

  // Language changes in content
  document.querySelectorAll('[lang], [xml\\:lang]').forEach(el => {
    if (el !== html) {
      results.langChanges.push({
        tag: el.tagName.toLowerCase(),
        lang: el.getAttribute('lang'),
        xmlLang: el.getAttribute('xml:lang'),
        text: el.textContent.trim().substring(0, 60)
      });
    }
  });

  // Check for consecutive <br> (presentational use)
  const walker = document.createTreeWalker(document.body, NodeFilter.SHOW_ELEMENT);
  let node;
  while (node = walker.nextNode()) {
    if (node.tagName === 'BR' && node.nextElementSibling?.tagName === 'BR') {
      results.presentationTags.brSequences++;
    }
  }

  // Direction changes
  document.querySelectorAll('[dir]').forEach(el => {
    if (el !== html) {
      results.dirChanges.push({
        tag: el.tagName.toLowerCase(),
        dir: el.getAttribute('dir'),
        text: el.textContent.trim().substring(0, 60)
      });
    }
  });

  return JSON.stringify(results, null, 2);
})()

Step 2: Evaluate criteria

Criterion 8.1 – Page has a doctype. The page must start with <!DOCTYPE html> (HTML5) or a valid DTD reference.

Criterion 8.2 – Generated source code is valid. Check for critical validity issues:

• No duplicate id attributes
• Tags are properly opened and closed
• Tags are properly nested
• Attributes are not duplicated on the same element

javascriptCopy code
// Quick duplicate ID check
(() => {
  const ids = {};
  const duplicates = [];
  document.querySelectorAll('[id]').forEach(el => {
    const id = el.id;
    if (ids[id]) duplicates.push(id);
    ids[id] = (ids[id] || 0) + 1;
  });
  return JSON.stringify({ duplicateIds: duplicates, totalIds: Object.keys(ids).length });
})()

Criterion 8.3 – Default language is present. <html> must have a lang attribute (and/or xml:lang for XHTML).

Criterion 8.4 – Language code is valid and relevant. The lang value must be a valid ISO 639-1/639-2 code and match the actual language of the page content. Common codes: fr, en, de, es, it, pt, nl, ar, zh, ja.

Criterion 8.5 – Page has a title. <title> element must exist and not be empty.

Criterion 8.6 – Page title is relevant. The title should identify the page content and ideally include the site name. It should be unique across the site. Check that it is not generic like "Home" or "Untitled".

Criterion 8.7 – Language changes are indicated in the code. Any passage of text in a different language than the page default must have a lang attribute on a surrounding element. This requires visual/content inspection.

Criterion 8.8 – Language change codes are valid. Each lang attribute on sub-elements must be a valid ISO language code.

Criterion 8.9 – Tags are not used for presentation only. HTML tags must be used according to their semantic meaning:

• No <h1>-<h6> used just for visual styling
• No <blockquote> used just for indentation
• No <table> used just for layout without role="presentation"
• No consecutive <br> used for spacing
• No deprecated presentational elements (<font>, <center>, <big>, etc.)

Criterion 8.10 – Reading direction changes are signaled. Content in right-to-left scripts (Arabic, Hebrew) must use dir="rtl". Content in left-to-right scripts within an RTL context must use dir="ltr".

Step 3: Generate report

For each criterion, report the status and any issues found. Language-related criteria (8.7, 8.8) and semantic misuse (8.9) may require content analysis beyond pure code inspection.

WCAG references: 9.1.3.1 (A), 9.2.4.2 (A), 9.3.1.1 (A), 9.3.1.2 (AA), 9.4.1.1 (A), 9.4.1.2 (A)