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Re: Visibly hidden headings to label regions and landmarks

for

From: Max Starkenburg
Date: Sep 2, 2020 9:58AM

During a recent code review of a site change I was making, in which I was
trying to replace a use of a visually-hidden span used to label a region
via aria-labelledby (as presumably unnecessarily complex / redundant) with
aria-label, the reviewer brought up this article indicating that aria-label
values can get lost in translation
<https://adrianroselli.com/2019/11/aria-label-does-not-translate.html>
(whether when sending text to be translated or also by automatic browser
translation tools). Even though we don't translate the sites we work on, I
guess I wasn't feeling like put up much of a fight to avoid
the noise/redundancy others have mentioned in this thread (less justified
in our particular case, being in a span instead of heading), and could
concede that we do have many international students, some of whom might
possibly use automated translation tools on our sites.

Also putting this out there, for whatever it's worth: it seems that at
least some browser and screen reader combos, when navigating by heading,
will also announce to the user when they are newly entering or exiting
regions, so some users primarily navigating by headings (instead of
arrowing) might still get some noisy redundancy if a page has
visually-hidden headings in combination with aria-labelledby (e.g. I can
hear "entering *Site Menu* navigation, heading level two *Site Menu*" on a
page with such markup, in Edge with JAWS, though that admittedly doesn't
seem to be a commonly used combo).

Max
--
Maxwell M. Starkenburg
<EMAIL REMOVED>
https://maxwell.fyi


On Tue, Sep 1, 2020 at 8:37 PM David Engebretson Jr. <
<EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I think using region naming and a visibly hidden heading directly after
> the region naming as a great way to make sure that folks who navigate by
> headings, and folks who navigate by regions, will get equal structural
> information as to the regions that make up the web page.
>
> It might be "noisy" to a screen reader user who is navigating by arrow
> keys but I don't think, and the screen reader survey seems to agree
> statistically, that all screen reader users navigate pages in the same way.
> Personally I know that regions should give me a quick glimpse of the visual
> sections of the page and headings should give me context to the textual
> content of the page, but I don't think most of us screen reader users are
> as savvy as those of us in the web accessibility field.
>
> The more opportunity for equal access the better, in my opinion.
>
> Best,
> David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> Murphy, Sean
> Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2020 4:30 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Visibly hidden headings to label regions and
> landmarks
>
> From a screen reader point of view. I see this as screen noise. If I have
> a region with the exact name as the heading, which is the next line. Then
> there is no added value due to both elements are page section components.
> This is over usage of aria when it is not required.
>
>
> If it actually fails a SC. This time of morning, I cannot recall our
> internal discussions on this point. As we have had them. My guidance is to
> use one or the other. As you don't need to have headings on a page if they
> are visually design that way. If you have headings visually designed, then
> you don't need the region section.
>
> Sean
>
> Regards
> Sean Murphy
>
>
>
> Sean Murphy | Senior Digital System specialist (Accessibility) Telstra
> Digital Channels | Digital Systems
> Mobile: 0405 129 739 | Desk: (02) 9866-7917 Digital Systems Launch Page
> Accessibility Single source of Truth
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> Vaibhav Saraf
> Sent: Wednesday, 2 September 2020 3:47 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: [WebAIM] Visibly hidden headings to label regions and landmarks
>
> [External Email] This email was sent from outside the organisation – be
> cautious, particularly with links and attachments.
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I have observed that many of the developers associate the visibly hidden
> headings with the page regions mostly with the use of aria-labelled-by
> attribute. So they will be announced to the screen reader as, for instance,
> navigation landmark (+) heading label (+) heading level. Many of the
> Google's websites extensively use this approach.
>
> I have also seen another implementation where the first element inside a
> region is a visibly hidden heading. They aren'y programmatically associated
> in the case. They work exactly the same with NVDA and JAWS as in the first
> case. My friend told me that this approach will face badly with VoiceOver,
> I have never used VO so seeking information about the same.
>
> How well is the thought of providing the label as a heading, what I prefer
> is that labelling should be done using 'aria-label' attribute and headings
> probably should be available to all. However this approach looks good as
> long it serves a pleasant experience to most combinations of browser and
> SRs.In my understanding WCAG has no direct emphasis around the topic I want
> to discuss or probably I am not able to understand it. I seek your opinion
> about the scenario.
>
> Thanks,
> Vaibhav
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