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

for

From: Mohith BP
Date: Jul 24, 2018 11:36PM

Hi,

Adding to the Steve's point in Android Talkback the quick navigation
setting is same for landmark and heading so one has to listen twice
the same information if the heading and region has same information.

As most of the sites does not have uniformity such as marking main
content properly many a times I navigate with the region navigation
and end up in some other content which is not actually main content.

It is good to mark as less regions as possible such as Navigation
Search and Main, etc.
The tricky thing is <aside> is widely used in most of the sites which
is also a region.


Thanks & Regards,
Mohith B. P.


On 7/25/18, Robert Fentress < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I meant to say "Thanks, Jonathan." I already thanked Steve. Haha!
>
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 6:20 PM Robert Fentress < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Steve! That is very helpful.
>>
>> Your comments point to the challenge of making an experience that is not
>> only technically accessible but also maximally usable for as many people
>> as
>> possible. Though it depends on your audience and your ability to pay for
>> usability testing with people with disabilities, I wonder if one strategy
>> might be to code in such a way as to provide the most efficient and least
>> noisy experience that is accessibility-supported, while providing initial
>> guidance for users who may not be familiar with the more modern features
>> of
>> their assistive technologies. That may seem patronizing, but there is a
>> bit of a chicken and egg sort of problem here. If you limit yourself to
>> techniques that people are already familiar with, even if more efficient
>> methods exist that are supported by the user's assistive technology, then
>> it seems like you'll always be stuck with a sub-optimal experience.
>> Balance in all things, of course, but technology evolves--usually for a
>> reason--and we should take advantage of the affordances it provides.
>>
>> Best,
>> Rob
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:10 AM Jonathan Avila
>> < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'll add to what Steve has said from a US perspective. I agree with all
>>> of his comments regarding headings. I also have seen the same
>>> challenges
>>> with training although in my experience people who have had disabilities
>>> for a longer time are more aware of different products and settings then
>>> when I started in this field 20 years ago. I have not witnessed the
>>> same
>>> issue with table navigation that Steve did although I do see people tend
>>> to
>>> use older less effective commands like the list of links feature to
>>> explore
>>> a page. Unsurprisingly, people who have more recently acquired a
>>> disability in my experience are more likely to not be aware of as many
>>> options. It is my experience that many ophthalmologist after
>>> determining
>>> they can't assist a person is who is loosing vision don't refer the
>>> person
>>> to services although as Steve points out services and community groups
>>> are
>>> available to people with disabilities such as those with visual
>>> impairment.
>>>
>>> In the US many services occur at the state level through the state
>>> department of rehabilitation services or it's specific equivalent such
>>> as
>>> the department for the blind and visually impaired. When I started in
>>> this
>>> field 20 years ago customers would receive a week or two of training and
>>> assistive technology in order to assist them with job placement. At the
>>> time government programs such as the CAP program at the Department of
>>> Defense offered similar services for participating agencies for Federal
>>> employees. In both cases the early 2000s due to budget cuts the level
>>> of
>>> training that people received dropped to a day or two and the list of
>>> assistive technology that would be purchased was constrained. I'm
>>> currently not involved with this aspect of service delivery but from
>>> what
>>> I've heard it is similar now in the very limited scope of what people
>>> receive in the form of training. Other organizations exist such as the
>>> Lighthouse and similar non-profits to provide services or redu
>>> ced cost services but it is a challenge to reach everyone with the
>>> right
>>> training and skills people need.
>>>
>>> As a side note regarding my comments on the list of links used by screen
>>> reader users -- I do find that the list of links is useful if you know
>>> the
>>> name of the link you are looking for. It can be an effective way to
>>> reach
>>> something if you know the name. However, if you don't know the name of
>>> a
>>> link you can spend more time trying to read through the list of links
>>> looking for something that could be found easier through navigating the
>>> structure of a page. For example, if you were looking for a store
>>> locator
>>> the link might be sufficiently named "find a store" or "store location"
>>> or
>>> even "my local store" but those begin with different letters as such if
>>> you
>>> are trying to navigate by first letter navigation in a list of links you
>>> will likely have difficulty. A better way might be to search for the
>>> word
>>> "store" on the page. In my experience screen readers have also not
>>> updated their list of links functionality to support new ways of
>>> labeling
>>> things such as via aria-describedby and
>>> don't include the current list items, sentence, or table cell
>>> information in the list of links. In short, usability testing with
>>> users
>>> that have disabilities may reveal limitations in access to training,
>>> limitations and bugs in assistive technology in addition to bugs or
>>> design
>>> flaws in a website or application. So understanding and taking action
>>> on
>>> user findings as Steve points out is a tricky situation. It takes an
>>> expert to unpack the findings and figure out the best solution. I'm
>>> not
>>> blaming users here -- so please don't suggest that -- I'm saying that
>>> the
>>> challenges are complex in understanding and addressing the issues users
>>> with disabilities face in accessing digital content.
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>>