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In Brief
- Goal
- A page that plays music or sounds doesn't disrupt people.
- What to do
- If you play audio content automatically, let people turn it down or off.
- Why it's important
- Sound distracts some people, and also interferes with screen readers.
Success Criterion (SC)
If any audio on a web page plays automatically for more than 3 seconds, either a mechanism is available to pause or stop the audio, or a mechanism is available to control audio volume independently from the overall system volume level.
Note
Since any content that does not meet this success criterion can interfere with a user's ability to use the whole page, all content on the web page (whether or not it is used to meet other success criteria) must meet this success criterion. See Conformance Requirement 5: Non-Interference.
Intent
Individuals who use screen reading software can find it hard to hear the speech output if there is other audio playing at the same time. This difficulty is exacerbated when the screen reader's speech output is software based (as most are today) and is controlled via the same volume control as the sound. Therefore, it is important that the user be able to turn off the background sound.
Having control of the volume includes being able to reduce its volume to zero. Muting the system volume is not "pausing or stopping" the autoplay audio. Both the "pause or stop" and control of audio volume need to be independent of the overall system volume.
Note
Playing audio automatically when landing on a page may affect a screen reader user's ability to find the mechanism to stop it because they navigate by listening and automatically started sounds might interfere with that navigation. Therefore, we discourage the practice of automatically starting sounds (especially if they last more than 3 seconds), and encourage that the sound be started by an action initiated by the user after they reach the page, rather than requiring that the sound be stopped by an action of the user after they land on the page.
See also 1.4.7 Low or No Background Audio.
In the context of this success criterion, "plays automatically" broadly refers to audio that is not started/played as a direct result of a user's intentional activation. For example, selecting a link or button with clear labelling or context that it will start an experience where audio will play is an example of starting in response to a user's intended action. This criterion is also not intended to apply to a conference call or other interaction where two-way voice communication may take place; the potential for any participant to speak during a conference call is not equivalent to audio that "plays automatically for more than 3 seconds." However, a mechanism to control the volume of conference call output independently from the overall system volume would be a best practice.
Benefits
- Individuals who use screen reading technologies can hear the screen reader without other sounds playing. This is especially important for those who are hard of hearing and for those whose screen readers use the system volume (so they cannot turn sound down and screen reader up).
- This success criterion also benefits people who have difficulty focusing on visual content (including text) when audio is playing.
Examples
- An audio file begins playing automatically when a page is opened. However, the audio can be stopped by the user by selecting a "silent" link at the top of the page.
Techniques
Each numbered item in this section represents a technique or combination of techniques that the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group deems sufficient for meeting this Success Criterion. A technique may go beyond the minimum requirement of the criterion. There may be other ways of meeting the criterion not covered by these techniques. For information on using other techniques, see Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria, particularly the "Other Techniques" section.
Sufficient Techniques
Failures
The following are common mistakes that are considered failures of this Success Criterion by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group.
Key Terms
- assistive technology
hardware and/or software that acts as a user agent, or along with a mainstream user agent, to provide functionality to meet the requirements of users with disabilities that go beyond those offered by mainstream user agents
Note 1
functionality provided by assistive technology includes alternative presentations (e.g., as synthesized speech or magnified content), alternative input methods (e.g., voice), additional navigation or orientation mechanisms, and content transformations (e.g., to make tables more accessible).
Note 2
Assistive technologies often communicate data and messages with mainstream user agents by using and monitoring APIs.
Note 3
The distinction between mainstream user agents and assistive technologies is not absolute. Many mainstream user agents provide some features to assist individuals with disabilities. The basic difference is that mainstream user agents target broad and diverse audiences that usually include people with and without disabilities. Assistive technologies target narrowly defined populations of users with specific disabilities. The assistance provided by an assistive technology is more specific and appropriate to the needs of its target users. The mainstream user agent may provide important functionality to assistive technologies like retrieving web content from program objects or parsing markup into identifiable bundles.
- screen magnifiers, and other visual reading assistants, which are used by people with visual, perceptual and physical print disabilities to change text font, size, spacing, color, synchronization with speech, etc. in order to improve the visual readability of rendered text and images;
- screen readers, which are used by people who are blind to read textual information through synthesized speech or braille;
- text-to-speech software, which is used by some people with cognitive, language, and learning disabilities to convert text into synthetic speech;
- speech recognition software, which may be used by people who have some physical disabilities;
- alternative keyboards, which are used by people with certain physical disabilities to simulate the keyboard (including alternate keyboards that use head pointers, single switches, sip/puff and other special input devices.);
- alternative pointing devices, which are used by people with certain physical disabilities to simulate mouse pointing and button activations.
- conformance
satisfying all the requirements of a given standard, guideline or specification
- mechanism
process or technique for achieving a result
Note 1
The mechanism may be explicitly provided in the content, or may be relied upon to be provided by either the platform or by user agents, including assistive technologies.
Note 2
The mechanism needs to meet all success criteria for the conformance level claimed.
- paused
stopped by user request and not resumed until requested by user
- process
series of user actions where each action is required in order to complete an activity
- relied upon
the content would not conform if that technology is turned off or is not supported
- technology
mechanism for encoding instructions to be rendered, played or executed by user agents
Note 1
As used in these guidelines "web technology" and the word "technology" (when used alone) both refer to web content technologies.
Note 2
Web content technologies may include markup languages, data formats, or programming languages that authors may use alone or in combination to create end-user experiences that range from static web pages to synchronized media presentations to dynamic Web applications.
- user agent
any software that retrieves and presents web content for users
Test Rules
The following are Test Rules for certain aspects of this Success Criterion. It is not necessary to use these particular Test Rules to check for conformance with WCAG, but they are defined and approved test methods. For information on using Test Rules, see Understanding Test Rules for WCAG Success Criteria.