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Re: Headings and WCAG2 compliance (1.3.1) [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Apr 16, 2012 7:29PM

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 7:08 PM, Duff Johnson wrote:

> I get that the authors of WCAG 2.0 take the view that 1.3.1 does not require appropriate heading levels. What I don't understand (maybe I'm just dumb) is how the actual TEXT of 1.3.1 supports this view.

I agree with you. The text of 1.3.1 certainly would suggest a logical
heading level. It's the supporting materials that clarify (to me at
least) that such is not really a requirement.

> Secondarily, I don't understand why ignoring heading levels would be acceptable any more than would reading a nested list as if it wasn't nested (which everyone agrees is a no-no).

I'm with you on this one. It's certainly bad practice. I was just
pointing out that it doesn't seem to be absolutely required for WCAG
conformance.

> - If "structure and relationships" are to be "programmatically determined" how can this occur in the case of content in which heading levels don't reflect the document's actual structure?

I interpret the relevant techniques to simply require that headings
should be used, not that the overall document structure be logical. In
other words, I believe it only requires a relationship between a
content "chunk" and its own heading, not a logical relationship
between "chunks"/headings.

> Can a user agent that understands headings but ignores levels still comply with WCAG 2.0?

I don't know. The user agent is pretty much irrelevant to WCAG
conformance. With that said, I agree that it's hard to call something
compliant when the implementation of that compliance results in
terrible accessibility.

The beauty of WCAG is that if you think it's a requirement, it can be.
If you don't think it's required, it's not. I prefer to err on the
side of better accessibility and would thus specify a logical heading
structure to be WCAG conformant, despite what the details of WCAG
suggest.

I'm thinking I shouldn't have played devil's advocate on this one. :-)

Jared