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Re: Headings and Navigation Areas

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Jan 14, 2012 3:30PM

Hi

Just chiming in as a user.
I often use "h" to navigate throughheadings when discovering a new
page. I don't like multiple h1s on the page, I just want a single h1
elemnt on that pgae, one that takes me to the main area of the page.
The other thing I likeis consistency in headings, in other words, that
groupsoflinks or parts of a page have the same level headings, be it
h2, h3 or some other level.
I don't like, say, the navigation area to be h2, the "contact us" area
to be an h3 and so on.
Good exampes is, for instance, www.nhl.com/scores .. at night (EST)
there are tables for each on-going game with the live scores updated,
"on-going" "final" and "news" are the main sections and they are all
h3, so I can easily jump between them. I am a big fan of this typeof
navigation as long as it is consistent.
That being said, for a page like you describe, I'd recommend using
ARIA, I find myself using ARIA increasingly whenit is available to
jump to "main" "search" etc. Often it is a bit awkward to have a
separate and unique heading for "search" which generally is just one
edit field with a button, and possible some menus for sarch options.
The search landmark works very well for this, barring that using the
"e" key to find an edit field will also do the trick, almost seems
like a bitof waste of headings (unless these provide benefits for
non-screenreader users".
hth, or at least gives you a perspective.
-B

On 1/14/12, LSnider < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I wanted to hear the collective wisdom on a site I just saw. It had the
> usual design, banner, two navigation areas (one horizontally at the top and
> one vertically on the left), search area on the left side and a main
> content area. The developers have used headings this way:
>
> The title above the content is a H1-that is fine.
> Then they gave H2 headings to the primary and secondary navigation areas
> and search area. These H2s are invisible to sighted viewers.
>
> Do you use headings this way? Or do you use them just for content areas?
>
> Cheers
>
> Lisa
>