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Re: Landmarks structures

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From: Steve Green
Date: Apr 21, 2020 6:06AM

1.3.1 basically says that if you can visually perceive a relationship between components, then that relationship must also be conveyed programmatically. In most cases when you look at a website you can clearly see the page header and footer, which are common to all pages. Those groupings must be conveyed programmatically. Everything in between them would usually be the main content, so that should be in a main landmark. I would therefore say that the absence of landmarks is a failure of 1.3.1.

The HTML5 specification states how many of each landmark you can have and how they can be nested. You can only have one main landmark that is visible, although you can have others that are hidden. You can have as many headers and footers as you want.

It's fine to nest landmarks as long as you do so in accordance with the HTML5 specification. You can have navigation and search landmarks inside pretty much any other landmark, but you can't put the main landmark inside anything else. As far as I can tell, you can even have one navigation landmark inside another.

There are obviously a vast number of permutations, so you can't learn them all - you need to understand the principles. I couldn't find them all gathered in one place, so it looks like you need to look at the specification for each one separately.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd