WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Aria roles instead of headings?

for

From: Jared Smith
Date: Mar 4, 2013 9:10PM

On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Christian Biggins wrote:

> Everything I have read about headings suggest that they must be in order
> and that you cannot 'skip' a heading level.

You shouldn't skip heading levels when moving down the document
structure (e.g., from an h2 to an h4). Going from an h2 to an h1 is
not skipping a heading level. It's equivalent to going from an h3 to
an h2 later in the document. Both are perfectly acceptable. If this is
wrong, the WebAIM site has been wrong for over a decade and nobody's
every complained about it.

There are some who will advocate that the document must start with an
h1, but there is nothing in HTML or any accessibility guidelines that
would suggest this (that I'm aware of).

Jared