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

for

From: Don Mauck
Date: May 3, 2011 5:51AM


I can assure you that the first thing as a screen reader user that I look for on web pages are H1 through h4 headings and that many time skip to links do very little to speed up the use of finding the different sections on a web page. About the only time a skip to link is good for anything is when the page has only one large section.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jared Smith [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 10:38 AM
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