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Re: Landmarks structures

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Apr 21, 2020 8:12AM

> 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.

At this point there is not a documented WCAG blanket failure for lack of landmarks as some people have argued that use of headings within a document does communicate and create distinction for the sections of pages that can provide equivalents (e.g. h1 for the start of main content). Text can also be used to meet criterion 1.3.1. So any determination would likely need to take into account the text that is used along with other structures like headings to determine if visual backgrounds, etc. have equivalents. Keep in mind that some pages have no visual distinction between headers and footers and main content.

Jonathan