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UK Civil Aviation Regulations

These are published by the CAA on our UK Regulations pages. EU Regulations and EASA Access Guides published by EASA no longer apply in the UK. Our website and publications are being reviewed to update all references. Any references to EU law and EASA Access guides should be disregarded and where applicable the equivalent UK versions referred to instead.



1. Link text is descriptive

It’s common bad practice to use the words “click here”, “read more”, or just “here” or “more” for link text. This is problematic for several reasons:

  • Users look for shortcuts when scanning the page. “Click here” or similar doesn’t provide any detail on what the user will get when they click.
  • Screen reader users also often check what links are present on the page, in the form of a list provided by their software.
  • The “click” in “click here” puts too much emphasis on the mechanics of the action. We can’t presume that users are interacting with the site using a mouse.
  • Search engines ascertain the value of a page based on the headings, the page title, and link text. Not providing descriptive link text will result in a lower ranking in search engine results.

Example

2. Page is structured using descriptive headings

Descriptive headings help users to orient themselves within a page and find the content they’re looking for.

They should appear in the page in the correct order. For example, a heading level 2 (h2) should only be placed beneath a heading level 1 (h1), level 3 for a subsection under level 2 etc.

Example

    
<h1>Aviation safety</h1>
<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.</p>
<h2>Commercial airline safety</h2>
<p>Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.</p>
<h2>General aviation safety</h2>
<p> Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.</p>
<h2>Drone safety</h2>
<p> Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p>
<h3>Licensing your drone</h3>
<p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.</p>
    

3. Headings aren’t used to style content

Headings should only be applied to structure the content, not to add styling. To emphasise text, use bolding (<strong>…</strong>) or emphasis (<em>…</em>).

Equally, bolding shouldn't be used to denote a heading.

4. Tables have captions and header cells applied

A caption acts as a heading for a table – it describes the content, and in doing so, helps users to find the table in the page and understand what it contains.

A header cell acts as a heading for the cells below it.

Example

Please refer to the following example when constructing a table in HTML. You’ll note that:

  • it includes a caption
  • it includes a row of header cells placed within a <thead/> element
  • each header cell its scoped to the column that it heads
    
<table>
    <caption>Events</caption>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th scope=”col”>Date</th>
            <th scope=”col”>Event</th>
            <th scope=”col”>Venue</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>26 July</td>
            <td> Lifting the Lid - Space Regulation</td>
            <td>Aviation House</td>
        </tr>
        […]
    </tbody>
</table>