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Re: ARIA Landmarks and Headings

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From: Jared Smith
Date: May 2, 2009 12:20PM

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 8:18 AM, Samwise S wrote:

> I have some confusion regarding differences in ARIA Landmarks and page
> headings as they seem to serve almost the same purpose.

There are several differences.

- Landmarks provide explicit access to the landmark in question. For
instance, a user can jump directly to the search box on a page with a
landmark role, but to get to a Search heading (assuming there is one),
they will have to navigate through all of the headings on the page and
look for "Search". User agents can allow navigation directly to any
landmark or navigation through all of the possible landmarks.

- The meaning of landmarks is defined in the standard, whereas
headings are specified by the page author. "Main" landmark will always
be the main content, but there's no guideline for specifying the
heading text or level that should begin main content.

- Landmark roles define the entire area in question whereas headings
just define the beginning of it (I think "landmark" isn't really
accurate as it suggests a point in the page rather than an area). With
headings, there's no real way of knowing when navigation or main
content or whatever ends.

- With landmark roles, you don't have to specify headings to begin
each section. In many ways, having a heading that says, "Hey, this is
the beginning of the navigation" isn't all that useful.

That's a few differences I can think of. Landmarks are not a
replacement for headings. You lose absolutely nothing by adding
landmark roles - they are hidden in the page - so why not add them?

Jared Smith
WebAIM