WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Headings

for

From: Geof Collis
Date: Dec 24, 2009 6:48AM

Hi John

Fantastic!! Well said.

I spend a lot of time researching sites for articles for my
Newsletter and websites, I know what I like in a site layout and
slapping a heading on anything that looks like it might be a
sufficient technique is not one of them.

When I visit a site for research I want to be able to get to the
source as quickly as possible that is why I like the first heading to
be what I am looking for. As I have said before too many sites have
it buried 5 and 6 headings down with my carpal tunnel problem the
less clicks I have to deal with the better.

If I go to a site for leasure thenI will start at the top and tab
down one click at a time to get a feel for the site. Once I have the
feel of the navigation and it is consistent and uses other semantic
markup like unordered lists then I know that if I go to another page
on the site and need anything in the menu thenI can just as easily
use my JAWS list command or even the drop down menu to find it. Now
that I have the feel I can go to any page hit the h key once and I am
at the content.

Furthermore if I want the search box I just need to hit the f key, if
it is placed properly I'm there in one click, no different than
hitting the h key for headings and if my technology allows I can use
the role landmarks

While I might be mistaken the WebAim survey did not ask how many or
what should be a heading only that headings are used by the majority
of us screen reader users.

Finally my website is built for a chapter of the National Federation
of the Blind, the majority of them are screen readers users and they
are very happy with the site.

cheers

Geof