This section discusses metadata techniques that can be employed to satisfy WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria. For more information about metadata see resources below.
At its most basic level, metadata is essentially 'data about data' and is used to both describe and find resources.
Metadata is a powerful tool that can be used for describing Web pages and accessible components of Web pages as well as associating alternate versions of Web content to each other. These descriptions in turn allows users to locate specific information they need or prefer.
In conjunction with WCAG, metadata can play a number of roles including:
Metadata descriptions often provide values from defined, agreed vocabularies such as the resource's subject matter or its date of publication, and are machine readable - software that understands the metadata scheme in use can do useful tasks not feasible otherwise. Typically, an object having metadata may have one or more such metadata descriptions.
Well-known specifications (schemas) for metadata include:
There are some tools available to provide resource descriptions, or they can be provided manually. The more easily the metadata can be created and collected at point of creation of a resource or at point of publication, the more efficient the process and the more likely it is to take place.
Some examples include:
Accessibility metadata implementations include: