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making a toolbar a landmark

for

From: Jeff Gutsell
Date: Mar 9, 2025 2:11PM


Hi All,

Yesterday, I stumbled across code I wrote in the summer of 2000 for an
online help system that was required to mimic the look and feel of the old
Microsoft compiled HTML Help. I have been shaking my head at how little
accessibility my creation showed. Such were the times.

While pondering the many ways I would change this now, I got to thinking
about the toolbar at the top of every page. This toolbar was not in a
landmark. These days, if the top of the page had a popup navigation menubar,
that almost certainly would be a page landmark using the <nav> element.

Would it be worthwhile to put such a toolbar in a landmark? Is there a rule
of thumb for how to decide this?

I am thinking the landmark would be a section element with an aria label.



Jeff Gutsell