Success Criterion 3.1.6 (Level AAA)


Does your website/application provide a mechanism to properly pronounce words that are ambiguous or indeterminate when pronunciation is vital to understanding the meaning?

Why is this important

It is important to provide a mechanism for proper pronunciation whenever understanding the meaning of the content depends on pronunciation.

Whom does it benefit?

It helps blind people, people with low vision and/or anyone with reading disabilities to understand content in cases such as mentioned above.

Example 1:

As a blind person
I want to use my screen reader to read the content correctly
so that I can understand everything without having to decode the information (e.g. English heteronyms such as ‘desert’ or ‘transport’ that could be either a verb or a noun).

Example 2:

As a person with reading disability / dyslexia
I want to have access to the glossary that provides the correct pronunciation
so that I can check the meaning of the problematic words.

What should you do?

  • provide pronunciation immediately following the word (e.g. for surnames or words derived from other languages)
  • provide sound files that are linked to words which pronunciation cannot be determined from context
  • include pronunciation information in the glossary

How do you do it?

  • in Japanese, web content provides phonetic characters in parentheses immediately after the word
  • link a sound file to a problematic word so that users can select the link to find out how to pronounce the word

Need technical guidance?

Technical guidance is available for implementing this Success Criterion at the Understanding Success Criterion 3.1.6 - Pronunciation page.