RE: APG Landmark Design Pattern Update and Questions related to Banner and Contenting landmarks

One approach I’ve used successfully with long-term Windows users is to say that Landmarks are the F6-loop. In classic Windows apps, you can use the F6 key to jump to big “chunks” of an application, like the toolbar, content area, and taskpane (stuff on the right). Landmarks serve the same purpose. Is there something similar on other operating systems?

I also say that “main” is a skip link.

From: Léonie Watson [mailto:tink@tink.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 3:18 AM
To: 'Richard Schwerdtfeger' <richschwer@gmail.com>; 'Gunderson, Jon R' <jongund@illinois.edu>
Cc: 'Matt King' <a11ythinker@gmail.com>; 'James Nurthen' <james.nurthen@oracle.com>; public-aria@w3.org
Subject: RE: APG Landmark Design Pattern Update and Questions related to Banner and Contenting landmarks

From: Richard Schwerdtfeger [mailto:richschwer@gmail.com]
Sent: 09 February 2016 16:19
On Feb 8, 2016, at 11:35 AM, Gunderson, Jon R <jongund@illinois.edu<mailto:jongund@illinois.edu>> wrote:

I am not sure why using the analogy of a “Table of Contents” is getting so much resistance, since it is something that most people can understand and help people to understand what landmarks can do.   I think where the analogy breaks down is that it is not useful when people get into sub sections, so maybe there is a better way to describe the analogy as a “high level table of contents of the content regions on the page”.

I agree with Jon on this. It is a table of contents for the page. People understand that. If landmarks are implemented correctly (everything in a landmark) then you indeed can jump to all content sections of the page.

I'm not so sure that's how people do think about landmarks. I did a straw poll of people from the British Computer Association of the Blind forum, Twitter and the A11ySlackers channel. I asked:

Do you think of landmarks (banner, main, navigation etc.) as a table of contents for the page (y/n)?

Of the 34 people who have responded, 26 said no, 7 said yes, and 1 was unsure. Not extensive research, but suggests we might want to think of a better way to describe landmarks.


Léonie.

--
@LeonieWatson tink.uk Carpe diem