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Re: Screen Reader Survey Results

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From: Duff Johnson
Date: Jun 6, 2012 10:19AM

On Jun 6, 2012, at 8:57 AM, John E Brandt wrote:

> I blogged about it as well...not so much to share an opinion, but simply to
> help publicize it.
> http://jebswebs.net/blog/2012/06/screen-reader-survey/
>
> Thumbs up to WebAIM!

Nice post, John.

Like me, I note that you were also struck by the significance of headings and heading levels as a means of navigation.

I've been banging this drum for some time now, mostly collecting mostly yawns from HTML aficionados. I'll admit that it's gratifying to have my experience as a service-provider of 12 years validated by this survey.

So many people in this field are convinced that "navigation" means "links". Maybe that's so in HTML but it's not generally applicable.

Where I come from (PDF), the only available means of content-based navigation IS document structure (H1, H2, etc). Using links to drive (i.e., serve as the vehicle for) intra-document navigation is a rarity in PDF. From an accessibility point of view it doesn't help a lot anyhow since the PDF language doesn't (today) allow good execution - PDF links can't target within a page. :-(

So, maybe it's just my PDF "upbringing", but conceptually confusing "navigation" and "link" has never worked for me. Surely "navigation" bespeaks a system, denotes structure, and so on. Links are merely a means of transport; they take you from a to b. Confusing links with navigation is like confusing a bus with a map.

Thanks for sharing the *link*. :-)

Duff.