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Re: Headings and Navigation Areas

for

From: LSnider
Date: Jan 14, 2012 4:30PM

Hi Birkir,

Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it. Interesting about the ARIA, I
will have to look into that route...

So do you as a screen reader user like to see headings used for navigation
areas (as long as things are consistent as you said below)? I can see
headings being useful for content areas (like the NHL site below)...but for
navigation areas, does that help you or does it confuse? I usually use
headings for content areas only, and am wondering if I should add them to
the navigation areas as well...

Cheers

Lisa


On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> 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
> >