WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: H1 to H4 titles sub titles....

for

From: Will Grignon
Date: May 2, 2011 10:48AM


The "skip to" function does work to move the cursor to the meat of the page
but it isn't usually used to navigate within the page once a user has
skipped to the meat.

A roster of "same page" links that sets forth the outline of the page setup,
however, does give a user a very useful roadmap of what is on the page and
how the page is laid out, as well as a convenient mechanism for navigating
directly to specific sections on the page. This function is even more
useful when one can link-return to the roster of same page links from any
given section. Finally, it would be even more optimal if the labels of the
same page links were formatted in the same heading levels as the headings of
the sections to which they link.

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 12:38 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] H1 to H4 titles sub titles....

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 10:10 AM, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

> I cannot see anything in Section 508 rules that would regulate the use
> of headings. The clause that comes closest is "(d) Documents shall be
> organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style
sheet."

One could interpret "(o) A method shall be provided that permits users to
skip repetitive navigation links." to be met by providing a logical heading
structure. This does not require headings by any means, but if a page has a
proper heading structure, is this an adequate "method"
for skipping repetitive navigation?

I would say that it is, but only for users of technology that facilitates
heading navigation - for now, primarily screen reader users. For sighted
keyboard users, standard browsers do not *yet* (for some inexplicable
reason) provide navigation by headings, so we prescribe a more universal
"method" (generally a "skip" link) to provide this functionality.

Jared Smith
WebAIM