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Page Titles

Screenshot of a safari browser tab showing the unique portion of the page title and the full title expanded on mouse hover.
Page title shown in Safari browser tab.

The page title element is displayed in the browser tab. Page titles define the name of the html document.

Impacted Users

Screen reader users hear the page title as the first thing spoken when they set focus to a webpage and when switching between browser tabs. Each page title needs to be unique and describe the purpose of the page.

Low Vision users need to see the unique portion of the page title displayed in their browser tab to confirm they're on the right page.

Users with cognitive disabilities need unique and specific page titles so they know they're on the correct page.

Designers

Designers have the same accessibility responsibilities as content designers for page titles.

Content Designers

Write page titles that are unique and describe the purpose of the page.

Each page must have a unique and meaningful title that describes the specific purpose of the page.

✅ Do

Good Content Example

See the Pen Page Title - Good Example by Paul J. Adam (@pauljadam) on CodePen.

Live Good Content Example

Page Title - Good Example

❌ Don't

Bad Content Example

See the Pen New Page 1 by Paul J. Adam (@pauljadam) on CodePen.

Live Bad Content Example

Testing for Accessibility

Using Web Inspector
  1. Right Click > Inspect the page.
  2. Make sure the title element inside the head is unique and describes the purpose of the page.
  3. If title element is unique and describes the purpose of the page then it passes. ✅
  4. If title element is not unique or does not describe the purpose of the page then it fails. ❌

Developers

Developers have the same accessibility responsibilities as content designers for page titles.

⚠️ Developers must also make sure SPAs (Single Page Apps) which dynamically update their content via AJAX also update their page titles. e.g. document.title = "New Title"

Disabilities Affected

Assistive Technologies Applicable

Design System Documentation

N/A

ARIA Design Patterns

N/A

WCAG Success Criteria

Success Techniques for WCAG

Failure Techniques for WCAG