WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Headings

for

From: Mike Osborne - AccEase
Date: Dec 21, 2009 3:36PM

Hi Geof

Call me heading crazy - but I agree with Margit.

Visually Main Menu" and "Categories" perform the function of being headings
for the "content" that follows - little matter that "content" is navigation.

If a screen reader chooses to scope the page by listening to all headings
first up they will miss those sections - which may be where they want to go
- yes, you've got them covered by links, but no harm in covering all bases.

Semantically, Main Menu and Categories are not paragraphs - so what are
they?

"ACCESSIBILITY" presumably should also be a heading - it's clearly not a
paragraph.

Couple of other observations - on first look I didn't realise the site was a
blog or had a blog and "Categories" seemed meaningless, perhaps the more
explicit "Blog Categories" might be better.

I presume that the white on black style as default is for
accessibility/legibility purposes rather than stylistic ones (?) - in which
case I find it interesting that highlights are shown as black text on white
which would be harder to read for people who prefer white on black. Wouldn't
a highlighting mechanism that fits the white on black style be more
appropriate?

Strongly applaud your styling of link focus so that tabbing really stands
out - not done often enough!

Why is Search not where you'd expect it to be - top right?

I tried changing Accessibility Options to my preferred black on white - but
results were mixed and then couldn't get back to white on black.

When I click "High Contrast" not sure what changed or what style I'm
currently in. If the choices are one of Default colours, High Contrast and
Mobile - which I'm now guessing they might be - perhaps radio buttons would
make that clearer?



Regards
Mike Osborne

AccEase Ltd
p. 04 934 2821
m. 021 675 010
e. <EMAIL REMOVED>
w. www.AccEase.com
-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
Sent: Tuesday, 22 December 2009 11:00 a.m.
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Headings

Hi Margit

Thanks but I find people are going heading crazy. :O)

Thanks also for the style sheet, seems I spelled color with a "u" for
the content section, gonna have to go through other ones to see if I
made the same mistake.

cheers

Geof

At 04:31 PM 12/21/2009, you wrote:
>Geof,
>
>I would make Main Menu, Categories, and Search this Site <h2> headings and
>apply a style class so that you can keep the look you have. This would
still
>allow you to keep your heading 1 where you have it now - to mark up the
>start of your main content. I think this is in line with WCAG 2
>recommendation, take a look at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-TECHS/H42.html. I
>like to have as much structural markup as possible, I think of headings a
>little bit like the outline for a table of contents just like in a Word
>document.
>
>On another note, the Default Colors link in your Main Menu goes to a page
>that doesn't load the stylesheet correctly. It loads as all white text on
>white background for me, not sure if you are aware of that.
>
>Margit
>
>
>On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Geof Collis < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> > Hi Andrew
> >
> > I think the argument here is that my navigation are supposed to be
> > headings, but I dont see it that way, navigation is navigation and
> > then there is content. I dont see a need to use headings as I have
> > said before, all I have is bold text to signify that it is a mainn
> > navigation and categories, if I chose not to put any text then there
> > would be no need to put headings at all.
> >
> > cheers
> >
> > Geof
> >
> >
> >
> > At 03:59 PM 12/21/2009, you wrote:
> > >Geof,
> > >Maybe you already fixed it, but when I look at the code I see one
> > ><h1> and two <h2> elements, and in my book those count as headings.
> > >
> > >Thanks,
> > >AWK
> > >
> > >Andrew Kirkpatrick
> > >
> > >Senior Product Manager, Accessibility
> > >
> > >Adobe Systems
> > >
> > > <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > >
> > >
> > >-----Original Message-----
> > >From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > >[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of
Moore,Michael
> > (DARS)
> > >Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 3:48 PM
> > >To: WebAIM Discussion List
> > >Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Headings
> > >
> > >My own personal warped opinion is that if it visibly looks like a
> > >heading then it should be coded as a heading. Why would you want
> > >headings for sighted users that are not available for screen reader
> > >users? As far as the heading order goes, you can control that
> > >through the code order with CSS and/or make the main heading an h1
> > >and the other headings lower heading. If I want to get to the main
> > >heading using a screen reader I can just whack the key for that
> > >heading level - the "1" key in JAWS.
> > >
> > >Mike Moore
> > >(512) 424-4159
> > >
> > >
> > >-----Original Message-----
> > >From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > >[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
> > >Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 1:03 PM
> > >To: WebAIM Discussion List
> > >Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Headings
> > >
> > >But I want the first heading to be the main content, I have skip
> > >links, they are marked up as lists and I use role landmarks, is that
> > >not enough?
> > >
> > >At 01:55 PM 12/21/2009, you wrote:
> > > > > They are, but is it an WCAG issue if they aren't coded as
headings?
> > > >
> > > >Looking at the sufficient techniques for WCAG 2.0 4.1.2
> > > >(http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/ensure-compat-rsv.html),
> > > >I would think that they should be marked up as headings.
> > > >
> > > >Tim
> > > >