WCAG 3.0 is an active W3C Working Draft in development by the AGWG. Requirements, assertions, the conformance model and reporting tiers are still being developed and may change. The latest published draft is the 10 September 2026 Working Draft; this site follows the editors’ draft, which also includes exploratory provisions.
developingSupplemental requirement
Media Chapters Available
Group: user-control • Guideline: media-control
Summary in Plain English
Audio or video of five minutes or longer can be navigated by chapters, unless it is a piece of music the composer did not divide into movements.
Why It Matters
Scrubbing a timeline precisely is difficult with a switch, a head pointer or a tremor. Chapters give structural navigation that does not depend on fine pointer control.
The media is a piece of music that the composer has not divided into movements.
Examples from the Draft
Worked examples the W3C editors wrote into the provision itself, not
examples invented here.
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony Number 5 is approximately 70 minutes long and is divided into five movements. Each movement would be a chapter.
Iron Maiden’s Rime Of The Ancient Mariner is approximately 14 minutes long and isn’t divided into movements. This meets the exception and would not need to be divided into chapters.
Research is needed to determine the length of time that triggers the chapter requirement and whether this threshold varies for different languages. If you are aware of research in this area, please email public-agwg-comments@w3.org.
W3C Threads on This Provision
No GitHub issue in w3c/wcag3 carries this provision's label, so there
is no recorded discussion to show. Cross-cutting threads that name no
provision are listed on the
Discussions page.
WCAG 2.2 Criteria That Map Here
From this site's reviewed WCAG 2.2 → WCAG 3 map. The map is
an interpretation, not a W3C mapping: W3C has not published one yet.
No mapping recorded. No WCAG 2.2 criterion in
this site's map is recorded as a predecessor of this provision.
Audio or video that lasts five minutes or longer can be navigated by chapters.
:::except-when
- The media is a piece of music that the composer has not divided into movements.
:::
:::ednote
Research is needed to determine the length of time that triggers the chapter requirement and whether this threshold varies for different languages. If you are aware of research in this area, please email public-agwg-comments@w3.org.
:::
:::example
Gustav Mahler's <cite>Symphony Number 5</cite> is approximately 70 minutes long and is divided into five movements. Each movement would be a chapter.
:::
:::example
Iron Maiden's <cite>Rime Of The Ancient Mariner</cite> is approximately 14 minutes long and isn't divided into movements. This meets the exception and would not need to be divided into chapters.
:::