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Re: Re-order page content

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Jun 3, 2017 9:37AM

Region is a landmark role in the ARIA 1.1 spec (see Jonathan's link),
and the HTML5 <section> element maps to it:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html-aria/
(browser / screen reader support for the region role is fairly robust).
In fact, I often recommend use of the region role, e.g. to mark the
boundries of dynamically displayed content e.g. in an accordion
pattern (similar to how the tabpanel role is used in the tabs
construct). The advantage that a region has over a heading is that
screen readers announce the beginning and end of the region, so screen
reader users get a full understanding of exactly hwat content got
dynamically displayed (a heading does not work as well in that
situation).
Another thing to consider is that a screen reader user can easily skip
over sections of static content to a form field (just press the tab
key), Placing instructions before a login field does not present a
challenge to a screen reader user, as long as user can navigate
directly to the beginning of those instructions, either using
navigation heading, skip link, or an ARIA landmark (in this case a
region landmark is probably not the most appropriate, you can use the
form role, or if you already have a heading, just stick with it and
keep it simple).
I know developers cringe if you ask them to add two extra links to
content for assistive technology reasons, so there has to be an urgent
accessibility reason to do so, I think in your case you can get by,
and save that favor for a rainy day.



On 6/2/17, Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> The use of role="region" is non-valid and non-conformant, although in
>> practical terms it is benign - today.
>
> John, can you please provide a citation for role of region being non-valid
> and non-conformant?
>
> https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/#region
>
> Jonathan
>
> Jonathan Avila
> Chief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART Group (soon to be Level Access)
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