WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Headings or not headings?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Feb 3, 2022 5:33AM

On 03/02/2022 12:28, Detlev Fischer wrote:
> I would not see it limited to h1-h6 and stuff with role=heading.
> I see 2.4.6 as applying whenever there is a semantic heading function
> for stuff subsumed (legend for radio groups, th for column content,
> invisible labels for nabigation regions, and so on). It assesses the
> "descriptiveness" (itself not an easy concept and to be evaluated with
> the context in mind) of such elements rather than aspects of
> programmatic determination.

Indeed. 2.4.6 is more softly about "anything that acts as heading or
label", but because too many folks were confused and thought label <label> the clarification was added that it's not just <label>. But the
fact that the understanding does *not* make a similar clarification
regarding headings doesn't mean that it *does* just apply to semantic
headings. It's more that understanding docs (and techniques, etc) can't
be comprehensive because otherwise they'd be 100 pages long and try to
boil the ocean to explain explicitly all the cases where this
does/doesn't apply.

And it's possible that it might even apply to humble <p>, <span>, <div>
elements that act that way (which yes, likely fail 1.3.1 for not being
properly marked up, but then that's a different SC ... for 2.4.6 you're
really subjectively evaluating the stuff "as you see it" whether it's
actually marked up semantically in the right way or not).

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke