Of Landmarks and Screenreaders

What is this website about?

What is this website about?

65% of screenreader users use headings to navigate lengthy webpages

Source: http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey5/#finding

Tips for using headings for screenreaders

  • Use one h1 for page title
    People can navigate to the first h1
    with a shortcut
  • Do not skip heading levels
    People will think content is missing
  • Be descriptive with headings
  • Have headings reflect an accurate
    page outline

CC BY Celso Flores

<header></header>

<nav></nav>

<main></main>

<footer></footer>

Isn't that less than 3%?

Source: http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey5/#finding

About a third of users use them often or whenever present

Source: http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey6/#landmarks

Landmarks can be implemented incorrectly on lots of pages

<section>
    <section>
        <h2>This is a section</h2>
    </section>
</section>

Screenreaders also support landmarks differently

HTML 5 elements and corresponding ARIA roles
HTML 5 ARIA Role
<header> role="banner"
<nav> role="navigation"
<main> role="main"
<footer> role="contentinfo"
<aside> role="complementary"
<section> role="region" *
<article> role="article" *
none role="search"
<form> role="form"

Source: https://dequeuniversity.com/assets/html/jquery-summit/html5/slides/landmarks.html

So how do I landmark?

Please don't use too many landmarks

Demo Time

* Remember testing in VoiceOver doesn't catch "section" and "article" landmarks and can add lots of noise

More tools

Tota11y
http://khan.github.io/tota11y/

WAVE http://wave.webaim.org/extension/

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