eGovernment Resource Centre - Victoria, Australia

Victorian
Government
Contact Centre
1300 366 356

Main Menu

Categories, RSS and More

Main Categories

Shorten URL

Please enter the URL that you'd like to shorten or click here to shorten current:


What's this? loading...

Rate this Site

Thanks for visiting. To help us help you find what you need please take our 1 minute Visitor Survey.

Members Forum

The Forum is the place for members to post their opinions and exchange ideas.

Frames and iFrames - Accessibility Toolkit - Version 3 - 2009

According to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Version 1.0, frames are inaccessible and any information contained within a frame must be provided elsewhere (Checkpoint 1.1). Some assistive technologies do now interact with frames and iframes, however it is still important to provide equivalent, accessible content where they are used.

The use of standard frames is now quite uncommon and not recommended practice.  iFrames are more common but still require strong consideration of their benefit against the issues they raise with accessibility and website usability.  Some of the issues raised by iFrames are that they:

  1. break the Back button;
  2. don’t allow users to bookmark pages; and they
  3. make printing website content difficult for users.

Therefore if you use frames or iFrames you must provide equivalent, accessible content in HTML or text.

Relationship to WCAG1 checkpoints:

Checkpoint 1.1 requires that a text equivalent is provided for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or in element content). This includes: frames.
Checkpoint 6.5 requires that dynamic content is accessible or that provide an alternative presentation or page is provided (eg. NOFRAMES for FRAME element)
Checkpoint 12.2 requires that the purpose of frames and how frames relate to each other is described if it is not obvious by frame titles alone.

What are iFrames?

An iFrame (also known as an inline frame) places one HTML document in a frame inside a normal (rather than frameset) HTML document. iFrames can also be used as the “target" of a link, in which case only the iFrame is opened. Alternative text is provided within the <IFRAME> tag set, for example:
<iframe src ="html_intro.asp" width="100%" height="300">Alternative text</iframe>

Note: the iFrame element is not supported in HTML 4.1 Strict DTD and in XHTML 1.0 Strict DTD.

Creating accessible iFrames

Provide an equivalent

It is important to provide an equivalent of the content within the FRAME or IFRAME.

  • The equivalent content for a FRAME should sit within the <NOFRAMES> tag:

    <FRAMESET title="Web site">
    <FRAME src="nav.html" title="Navigation">
    <FRAME src="contents.html" title="Contents of page">
    <NOFRAMES>
    Equivalent content
    </NOFRAMES>
    </FRAMESET>

  • The equivalent content for an IFRAME should sit within the <IFRAME> tag:

    <IFRAME src ="html_intro.asp" width="100%" height="300">
    Equivalent information
    </IFRAME>

Use relative sizing

It is important that when users increase the browser text size that the iFrame element scales with the size of the text. This can be done using the default IFRAME SCROLLING attribute: auto.

Links within the iFrames should open in a new window

Links clicked within the iFrame will open within the iFrame element, therefore it is important to ensure all iFrame content links are set to open in a new browser window. This can be achieved by using the HTML TARGET="_blank" attribute and value. For example:
<A HREF="http://www.vic.gov.au/" TARGET="_blank">Link</A>

Example 1: Accessible iFrame

This accessible iFrame resizes with text resize, opens links in new windows and offers a complete equivalent for users without iFrames.

Further Information

Source: Accessibility Toolkit Version 3, September 2009. Section 5 - Frames and iFrames.

Bookmark and Share

Added: 1 June 2010 Page views: 2,013 Rating: 0 Votes: 0
Review and rate this Article

Last updated: 1 June 2010