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Re: Hidden headings with aria-labelledby or just aria-label best for for labelling landmark regions?

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From: Steve Green
Date: Jul 23, 2018 11:40AM

Of the participants who have expressed an opinion, every one of them expects the <h1> to be at the top of the main content - they really don't care if it is preceded by lower heading levels. Behaviours I have observed over 14 years of user testing include:

1. Very few screen reader users use skip links even when they are provided and work correctly. Most people never even hear them because the screen reader goes into SayAll mode when a page loads, and they just stop it and start navigating from wherever it stopped.

2. Very few screen reader users use the number keys to jump directly to an <h1>. Almost all press the H key repeatedly till they hear the <h1>. This is only slightly less efficient and it's slightly easier to find the H key than the 1 key.

3. Consistency of structure within a page and between pages is far more important than perfect nesting of headings.

4. I have not seen anyone navigate by landmarks. With the exception of "obvious" landmarks such as main and navigation, most people don't know what the landmarks are for. As such, they are regarded as noise. That's not to say we shouldn't use them, but at the moment they are not understood well enough to be useful.

Steve