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Re: HTML Anchor Syntax Question

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From: Mark Magennis
Date: Dec 14, 2022 12:47AM

Jim,

I can't access the page you referenced but if a heading is also a link, it is best if the link is within the heading, not the heading within the link. This is because in VoiceOver/Safari, headings that are within links aren't announced as headings when the button is tabbed to or arrowed to. And when navigated to using the 'h' shortcut, the heading level is not announced. In JAWS/Chrome and NVDA/Firefox there is no difference.

There may also be an effect on the clickable . Notwithstanding other CSS treatments, if the link is within the heading, only the text is clickable. Whereas if the heading is within the link, the entire rectangular area encompassing the heading becomes clickable.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Jim Homme
Sent: Tuesday 13 December 2022 21:38
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [WebAIM] HTML Anchor Syntax Question

Hi,
Looking at https://html.spec.whatwg.org/dev/text-level-semantics.html#the-a-element, it seems to say that block level elements are allowed inside the text portion of an anchor tag. I'm looking at a page where there are some h3 tags inside anchors. Am I reading the spec correctly? I'm asking because the page in question keeps making the screen reader say heading 3 and link, when reading by arrow keys, which makes it sound like multiple links, when the source shows one link.

The page in question is https://highmarkwholecare.com/Medicare/Member-Tools/Get-Started-with-Highmark-Wholecare.

Thanks.

Jim
=========Jim Homme
Senior Digital Accessibility Consultant
Bender Consulting Services
412-787-8567
https://www.benderconsult.com/
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