Frame Titles and Layout

Frames can be used as a key design element to offer different sections (web pages) as a collection within one web page. There are some frame pros and cons to think about but frames can be made accessible with accurate titles and in the case of iframes an additional link to the content. There can be problems with orientation within frames as screen reader users may not receive clear guidance or know where they are within a web page if there are frames within frames or a lack of clear guidance as to where the focus within the page has settled. Once again W3C WCAG 2.1 offer extensive information about frames. Hobo has an article that includes a paragraph on Website Frames – Don’t Use Frames To Design & Build Your Site and they highlight some of the issues that make life harder when using frames; from printing to problems for search engines as well as accessibility. The suggestion is to make use of Cascading Style Sheets.