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Thread: headings on navigation lists

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Number of posts in this thread: 12 (In chronological order)

From: Angela French
Date: Thu, Jan 21 2010 3:15PM
Subject: headings on navigation lists
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Is there a best practice for including some sort of heading on navigation lists? I have seen some sites that use headings such as an <h2> and position it off the page so screen readers can pick it up, but this <h2> is often higher on the page than the <h1> and that bothers me.

Any ideas or examples from your own sites?

Thanks,


Angela French
Internet Specialist
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
http://www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;

From: Jared Smith
Date: Thu, Jan 21 2010 3:27PM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
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On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Is there a best practice for including some sort of heading on navigation lists?

I assume you mean some sort of heading that says, "Navigation" or
"Main Navigation" or similar that is presented just before the
navigation links, correct? If so, my opinion is that if they aren't
necessary visually to identify the navigation on the page, why should
they be necessary to someone that cannot see the page?

I do understand that they might provide some utility in jumping
quickly to navigation (though much less so if you're actually using a
true list for your navigation links), but they also come with a lot of
overhead. Screen reader users generally understand that the bunch of
links near the beginning of the page are the navigation, just like
sighted users understand this.

You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.

Jared Smith
WebAIM

From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Thu, Jan 21 2010 3:30PM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
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Jared wrote

You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.

Mike asks

Do you have an example of a site that is using this technique? We are testing screen readers.

Mike Moore

From: Mackenzie, Hamish
Date: Thu, Jan 21 2010 3:42PM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
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Hi Mike

Plenty of sites are using landmarks but one with a navigation landmark
is Gez Lemon's Juicy studio site at

www.juicystudio.com

Cheers

Hamish

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Moore,Michael
(DARS)
Sent: Friday, 22 January 2010 9:30 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

Jared wrote

You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.

Mike asks

Do you have an example of a site that is using this technique? We are
testing screen readers.

Mike Moore

From: Geof Collis
Date: Thu, Jan 21 2010 3:45PM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
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I'd say the best practice would be to not hide headings just for us
screen reader users, accessibility is not just for us.

cheers

Geof


At 05:14 PM 1/21/2010, you wrote:
>Is there a best practice for including some sort of heading on
>navigation lists? I have seen some sites that use headings such as
>an <h2> and position it off the page so screen readers can pick it
>up, but this <h2> is often higher on the page than the <h1> and that
>bothers me.
>
>Any ideas or examples from your own sites?
>
>Thanks,
>
>
>Angela French
>Internet Specialist
>State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
>360-704-4316
>http://www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;
>
>

From: Geof Collis
Date: Thu, Jan 21 2010 3:51PM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
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HI Mike

Do you mean the ARIA Landmark Role?

cheers

Geof


At 05:30 PM 1/21/2010, you wrote:
>Jared wrote
>
>You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
>did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.
>
>Mike asks
>
>Do you have an example of a site that is using this technique? We
>are testing screen readers.
>
>Mike Moore
>

From: Jon Gunderson
Date: Fri, Jan 22 2010 7:42AM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
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Here is a best practice:

http://html.cita.illinois.edu/nav/menu/

Jon


---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:23:41 -0700
>From: Jared Smith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists
>To: WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>
>On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>> Is there a best practice for including some sort of heading on navigation lists?
>
>I assume you mean some sort of heading that says, "Navigation" or
>"Main Navigation" or similar that is presented just before the
>navigation links, correct? If so, my opinion is that if they aren't
>necessary visually to identify the navigation on the page, why should
>they be necessary to someone that cannot see the page?
>
>I do understand that they might provide some utility in jumping
>quickly to navigation (though much less so if you're actually using a
>true list for your navigation links), but they also come with a lot of
>overhead. Screen reader users generally understand that the bunch of
>links near the beginning of the page are the navigation, just like
>sighted users understand this.
>
>You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
>did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.
>
>Jared Smith
>WebAIM
>

From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Fri, Jan 22 2010 9:27AM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
← Previous message | Next message →

Yes, I would like to test how well our screen reader candidates work with the ARIA landmark roll on different sites where it has been implemented.

Mike Moore
(512) 424-4159


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:51 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

HI Mike

Do you mean the ARIA Landmark Role?

cheers

Geof


At 05:30 PM 1/21/2010, you wrote:
>Jared wrote
>
>You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
>did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.
>
>Mike asks
>
>Do you have an example of a site that is using this technique? We
>are testing screen readers.
>
>Mike Moore
>

From: KINNUNEN, DANIEL
Date: Fri, Jan 22 2010 9:39AM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
← Previous message | Next message →

Mike, are you testing with multiple browsers too? Is specific browser
support required to make landmark roles useful, or is it strictly a
screen reader support issue? Anyone?

Thanks,
Dan Kinnunen
512-929-6424

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Moore,Michael
(DARS)
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:26 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

Yes, I would like to test how well our screen reader candidates work
with the ARIA landmark roll on different sites where it has been
implemented.

Mike Moore
(512) 424-4159


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:51 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

HI Mike

Do you mean the ARIA Landmark Role?

cheers

Geof


At 05:30 PM 1/21/2010, you wrote:
>Jared wrote
>
>You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
>did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.
>
>Mike asks
>
>Do you have an example of a site that is using this technique? We
>are testing screen readers.
>
>Mike Moore
>

From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Fri, Jan 22 2010 9:42AM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks Hamish, they work quite well on Gez's site. I probably should not be surprised, he has been teaching the rest of us how to do things right for quite a while.

Mike Moore


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Mackenzie, Hamish
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:42 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

Hi Mike

Plenty of sites are using landmarks but one with a navigation landmark
is Gez Lemon's Juicy studio site at

www.juicystudio.com

Cheers

Hamish

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Moore,Michael
(DARS)
Sent: Friday, 22 January 2010 9:30 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

Jared wrote

You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.

Mike asks

Do you have an example of a site that is using this technique? We are
testing screen readers.

Mike Moore

From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Fri, Jan 22 2010 9:48AM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
← Previous message | Next message →

I am concentrating on IE-7 since it is our agency's standard browser, but will probably give FF a try too since I have it installed. We will probably get to IE-8 later this spring since we have a request to test that as well. The permutations of AT, Browser, and Office suites is starting to get interesting over here. It's a good thing that we got a few copies of partition magic this week. Just part of the fun of trying to identify a single standard platform that will work for everyone.

Mike Moore


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of KINNUNEN, DANIEL
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:37 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

Mike, are you testing with multiple browsers too? Is specific browser
support required to make landmark roles useful, or is it strictly a
screen reader support issue? Anyone?

Thanks,
Dan Kinnunen
512-929-6424

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Moore,Michael
(DARS)
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 10:26 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

Yes, I would like to test how well our screen reader candidates work
with the ARIA landmark roll on different sites where it has been
implemented.

Mike Moore
(512) 424-4159


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:51 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings on navigation lists

HI Mike

Do you mean the ARIA Landmark Role?

cheers

Geof


At 05:30 PM 1/21/2010, you wrote:
>Jared wrote
>
>You can, however, greatly facilitate navigation navigation (see what I
>did there?) by adding ARIA landmark roles.
>
>Mike asks
>
>Do you have an example of a site that is using this technique? We
>are testing screen readers.
>
>Mike Moore
>

From: Geof Collis
Date: Fri, Jan 22 2010 9:57AM
Subject: Re: headings on navigation lists
← Previous message | No next message

Hi Mike

Try:

www.badeyes.com
www.aoda.ca
www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com
www.ccecnfb.org

and my latest

www.envisioningnewmeanings.ca

cheers

Geof