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Re: landmarks/regions

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Oct 5, 2021 10:01PM

I have just done a quick test with JAWS 2019, JAWS 2021 and NVDA 2021. I don't get the same results as you, but I get different results with each screen reader when testing the same page. All the landmarks are in the accessibility tree, so it seems that the screen readers are choosing to ignore some of them.

There are a lot of permutations of html element, "role" attribute and presence or absence of an accessible name, so quite a bit of testing will be required to work out what is happening unless the screen reader vendors have published anything in the release notes.

We always test for the use of landmarks when doing a WCAG audit, but we don't use a screen reader to do so - we use a bookmarklet and manual code inspection.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Schulz, Leslie via WebAIM-Forum
Sent: 05 October 2021 21:46
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Cc: Schulz, Leslie < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] landmarks/regions

I have been doing some work with landmarks/regions, and I was puzzled to find that screen readers are ignoring these HTML5 semantic tags:
Header
Footer
Article (with or without role="article") Section (with or without role="region")

They only pull up
Header with role="banner"
Footer with role="contentinfo"
These 3 work as regions, with or without a role, if the actual html tag is used.
<main>
OR <div role="main"
<nav>
OR <div role="navigation"
<aside>
OR <div role="complementary"

The nav and the aside do require an accessible name, but they still are announced by screen readers as regions.

I used JAWS and accessed the region list at Insert + F3.
I used NVDA and accessed the region list at Insert + F7.

Windows 10.
Chrome-Version 94.0.4606.61 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Question: If you have done user testing or are a native screen reader user, how much do people rely on regions?
As a tester, do you regularly check for regions?
Do you have any insights about regions that you would like to share?

Thanks,
Leslie



Leslie Schulz, MSEd, CPACC
Web Accessibility Specialist, Learning Team Content and Learning | Higher Ed & Skills Quality Learning for All Cengage Group
PHONE: 214.212.7379 Central Time
EMAIL: <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >
WEB: cengage.com<http://www.cengage.com/>;