Level AA · WCAG 2.1
1.3.4 Orientation
Content works in both portrait and landscape, unless a specific orientation is genuinely essential.
Partly automated Some failures are detectable, others need judgement.
How it fails in practice
A mobile checkout locked to portrait. Someone with a wheelchair-mounted tablet cannot rotate their device to match your assumption.
How to fix it
Remove the orientation lock and let the layout reflow. Reserve the lock for the rare case — a piano keyboard, a cheque scanner — where the task itself has an orientation.
At a glance
- Level
- Level AA — the level EN 301 549 requires, and therefore the level the BFSG and the EAA are measured against.
- Principle
- Perceivable
- Guideline
- 1.3 Adaptable
- Added in
- WCAG 2.1
- EN 301 549
- 9.1.3.4
- Automated check
- Partly automated
Partly automated
How far an automated check gets
A tool finds some failures here and cannot see the rest. A clean automated result means the checks that exist found nothing — not that the criterion is met. This is the gap that makes a green scan look like an accessible site, and it is where the keyboard agent, the agents still in development and a human reviewer do the remaining work.
Related criteria
Other criteria under the same guideline.
Find out which criteria your site fails
We scan up to 100 pages against WCAG 2.2 AA, send the keyboard agent through the page you name and email you the report — free, once, no strings.