RE: Headers Are Confusing in HTML5

> From: info@3zero.co.uk [mailto:info@3zero.co.uk]
> Sent: 27 November 2015 01:34
> As a developer I find the current advice for Headers somewhat confusing. I
> understand each area of the page can now have headers but is that good for
> semantics? Surely a document only needs one set of headers contained
> within the main article content of the page. To have headers in all
sections
> would that not prove more problematic for screen readers? I am totally
> baffled as to how to correctly markup a webpage now where as before I
> would use headers to summarise the main content of the page. Your advice
> would be gratefully received.

The browser should only expose the <header> (or <footer>) when it is scoped
to <body> [1]. If it is a child of <section>, <article>, or another
sectioning element, the role should not be exposed and screen readers should
therefore be unaware of it.

So <header> is useful to screen reader users as part of the high-level
document structure and ignored otherwise. It is therefore ok to continue
using <header> elsewhere in your document as you usually would.

Léonie.
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html-aam-1.0/ 

-- 
Senior accessibility engineer @LeonieWatson @PacielloGroup

Received on Friday, 27 November 2015 09:30:30 UTC