• Success Criterion 1.3.1
  • Conformance level A

Quotation Shown Only Through Styling, Not Real Markup

1.3.1 — Info and Relationships

Scenario

Setting

A recipe site's ingredient list

What’s wrong

Quotations/citations conveyed only by styling where meaning depends on it.

Example

<p><em>Use fresh basil if you can. It makes all the difference, says our test kitchen.</em></p>

Why it matters

A screen reader user hears the test kitchen's tip read exactly like every item in the ingredient list, missing that it's a quoted aside and not another ingredient.

How to test

Inspect a styled quotation (indented, italicized) in DevTools: check for blockquote/q/cite or an explicit textual attribution — style alone without markup fails.

How to fix

When meaning depends on something being a quotation, mark it as one; italics alone convey nothing to a screen reader.

<blockquote cite="https://example.com/test-kitchen">
  <p>Use fresh basil if you can. It makes all the difference.</p>
  <footer>Test kitchen</footer>
</blockquote>

Outcome

A cook hears the test kitchen's tip announced as a quote right after the ingredient list, clearly separate from the ingredients themselves.

Who is affected

Screen reader users scanning the ingredient list can't distinguish the test kitchen's quoted commentary from the actual ingredients.

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