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Re: Landmarks structures

for

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Apr 21, 2020 8:45AM

I think the region landmark (role="region" and the <section> element)
only turn into landmarks when you provide an accessible name (using
aria-label or aria-labelledby), same probably applies to <article> and
the article role, though I admit I am too lazy to check (well, too
busy to be honest).
I try to require that header/main/footer be identified as landmarks
when they are clearly identified visually on the page.
I recommend regions when a section of content is not followed by a
header, e.g. content that is displayed/hidden in an accordion. Often
the content after the accordion does not start with a heading and
without a region with an aria-label you cannot easily tell where the
expanded content ends and the next block of content begins, not unless
you collapse the content and then check.
The main advantage of landmarks is that their boundries (start and
end) are announced, a heading only marks the start of a section of
content, not the end of it.
If you have multiple landmarks of the same type, like multiple nav or
region landmrks, you should supply an accessible name for each so
users can easily tell them apart.
I recommend navigation landmarks for navigation menus.
Imagine a website header with a set of accordions, e.g.
<button aria-expanded="true">Mortgage solutions</button>
<nav aria-label="mortgage solutions">
list of mortgage solutions links goes here
</nav>

In our usability testing we found that, out of over 10 screen reader
users, not a single one used a landmark and basically no users knew
what a landmark was. I find this shocking and bit sad, shows lack of
training or documentation of what could be a very useful feature.


On 4/21/20, Jonathan Avila < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> 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
>
>