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Re: ARIA Landmarks and Headings

for

From: Chris Hoffman
Date: May 2, 2009 12:35PM

Hello Samwise,

According to the specification, "WAI-ARIA is a way for an author to
provide proper semantics for custom widgets to make these widgets
accessible." In other words, if it isn't immediately obvious what
something on a web page is supposed to be, then you can use ARIA roles
to make its purpose clear.

That means that if the sections of your page are already marked up
with heading explaining what they are, then you don't need to include
landmark roles as well. However, the _advantages_ to adding the
landmark roles are numerous, as Jared pointed out above. I also expect
that we will see more and more assistive technology (and other
technology, like search engines) recognize and make use of landmark
roles as time goes on, something that is more difficult to do with
arbitrary headings.

-- Chris

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Samwise S < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hello All,
> I have some confusion regarding differences in ARIA Landmarks and page
> headings as they seem to serve almost the same purpose.
> A website I am working on contains a header, navigation bar on left side,
> main content and a footer.
> Headings are currently provided for a section in top header bar, navigation
> links and main content in the webpage.
>
> If a website provides proper headings to structure content and provides
> sufficient navigation, then are ARIA Landmarks required?
>