The intent of this success criterion is to support personalization and preferences in order for more people to use the web, communicate, and interact with society.
Familiar terms and symbols are key for users with a limited vocabulary to being able to use the web. However, what is familiar for some users may not be for other users so programmatically associating user-interface components and icons enables people to load a set of symbols that is appropriate for them.
This success criteria requires the author to add the context, propose, and meaning of symbols, regions, buttons, links, and fields so that user agents knows what they do and can adapt them to make them understandable for the user. It is achieved by adding semantics or metadata that provides this context. It is similar to adding role information (as required by 4.2.1) but instead of providing information about what the UI component is (such as an image) it provides information about what the component represents (such as a link to the home page).
Identifying regions of the page allows people to remove or highlight regions with their user agent.
Products for people who are non-vocal often use symbols to help users communicate. These symbols are in fact people's language. Unfortunately, many of these symbols are both subject to copyright and are not interoperable. That means end-users can only use one device, and cannot use content, apps, or assistive technology that has not been made by a single company.
This success criteria enables symbols to be interoperable so that symbol users can understand different content that was not just made by one company. When users' symbols are mapped to the same nodes then user agents can load the user-understandable symbol. That means people could buy the symbols and use them across different devices or applications. (Note that the symbols would still be proprietary, but they could then be interoperable.)
People who benefit have many different cognitive disabilities including:
Meeting this Success Criterion helps users who need extra support or a familiar interface, including the need for: