Re: 1.3.1 question

Apologies for jumping straight in here after only having been officially 
nominated/joined...but as this whole discussion around 1.3.1 was the 
trigger that made me officially join, here's what I've just sent as 
comment to the survey https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/5April2016_misc/

(with further apologies as this was probably already 
touched-on/discussed here):

Landmarks are not required. "Landmarks are *a* technique to provide 
information/structure. They cannot be required (nor can any other 
specific technique/implementation) as at the time WCAG 2.0 was 
formalised they weren't even in existence/supported, to my knowledge. 
Claiming they are would retrospectively fail sites that up until now 
passed on this point.

More generally, in my view there is no hard requirement to always having 
to identify landmarks on every single page, in every single document. 
Key here is "information important for comprehension will be perceivable 
to all". Is every instance of a fairly clearly defined footer (perhaps 
with a heading, a list of links to Ts&Cs, privacy policy, a copyright 
notice) completely non-understandable to a user who cannot perceive its 
styling? Will real users be confused by a lack of <footer> element or 
relevant ARIA role? Further, is a role="region" (another sufficient 
technique for 1.3.1) then NOT acceptable compared to role="contentinfo"?

IF you determine that it is important to identify explicitly which part 
of the page is the header, which is the footer, which is the main; IF 
you don't deem it understandable enough for real users if these are 
simply happening sequentially; IF you deem the structure of the overall 
page so complex that a real user who can't visually perceive the page 
structure would be confused/unable to understand it otherwise; THEN 
something needs to be in place that further clarifies this structure. 
you can choose aria landmarks, or aria regions, or headings, or some 
other implementation that may not have even been dreamed up/documented 
in the non-normative techniques document. the HOW is not important. what 
matters is the end result: will a real user be less confused / 
understand the overall structure of the page better than before. jumping 
from this to "WCAG requires aria landmarks" is reaching.

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
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Received on Monday, 4 April 2016 10:54:45 UTC