RE: About the main element

Dominique Vilain wrote:

"In my understanding, if there is a main element in a document, it’s the best candidate to own 

the h1 tag. But what happens if some sectioning content comes before the main element ? 

The HTML5 outliner deals quite well with it, but the HTML 4 outline becomes messy if we use

explicit heading in that sectioning content (which is desirable in my opinion). Thus, knowing

that the support of HTML5 is extremely variable regarding AT, what can authors do ? I guess

i know the answer for some time now since it’s not a new problem, but regarding the example

in the spec, i thought it could be interesting to collect several new opinions about it."

 

To the best of my knowledge no browsers or assistive technologies support the HTML5 outline algorithm. There is therefore no material difference in the experience for assistive technology users.

 

The HTML5 sectioning elements are accessibility supported in Firefox, Chrome and Opera, but either not implemented or not accessibility supported in IE11 [1]. Where those elements are supported they should map to their corresponding ARIA landmark roles [2].

 

For those screen readers that support landmarks, they provide a way of navigating through content that is complementary to heading navigation. It isn't necessary for an element (like the <nav>) to have an accessible name for this to be an effective navigation strategy, although where there are multiple instances of the same sectioning element on the page it can be a useful way to differentiate one from another [3].  

 

Léonie

 

[1] http://html5accessibility.com/ 

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#landmark_roles 

[3] http://tink.uk/enhancing-aria-landmarks-with-aria-labelledby/

 

 

-- 

Senior Accessibility Engineer, TPG

@LeonieWatson @PacielloGroup