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headings, html5 sectioning content, best practice

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From: dawn@dawnbudge.co.uk
Date: Nov 12, 2014 4:54AM

Hi,
We're currently facing a dilemma in my team where we are trying to decide
on the best practice for how to mark up headings in sectioning content.
E.g. you have an element like <section>, <article>, or <footer>, and it
contains a heading
If you follow the spec you would mark that up with <h1>. However, that
will cause issues in AT, particularly screenreaders, so to support those
you would use <h2>. Because of JAWS' support for the outline standard
(http://juicystudio.com/article/html5-outline-algorithm-jaws.php) this
further requires use of aria to set the heading level properly for JAWS.
Once AT catches up, these settings will be legacy code, and you'd then have
the job of updating add headings in sectioning content to their
spec-compliant number.
- Is there a consensus over best practice amongst accessibility experts?
- Am I right in thinking that only JAWS supports document outline properly?
- How often does Apple update VoiceOver? They seem to update less often
than JAWS - Am I right in thinking that headlines are commonly used for
navigation?

Thanks,Dawn