Re: Using Heading to Replace Skip Links

Headings are meant to expose structure. That's what they do visually
and allow screen reader users too to comprehend structure.
Maybe jumping to an h1 (or h2) where such a tag is used consistently
across pages on a site might help screen reader users (and say Opera
users) navigate to main content. That is an alternative method and is
perhaps incidental benefit of heading navigation. But every time one
skips to an h1(or h2, etc.)  does not mean one is skipping repetitive
blocks of content / navigation.
I do not consider it is sufficient for SC 2.4.1 and had conveyed my
objection on the technique to WCAG-WG too and suggested they merge it
with H42 (headings technique) and convey that it is an incidental
benefit of using headings.
Sailesh

I
On 5/11/12, Devarshi Pant <devarshipant@gmail.com> wrote:
> “Headings can only replace skip links for screen reader users - they don't
> benefit sighted keyboard-only users (e.g. Prof Hawking) and low vision
> users using screen magnifiers, for whom skip links work much better
> (because they don't have shortcut keys to navigate headings).”
>
>
>
>>>Coding to H69 can inconvenience sighted keyboard and even voice
> recognition users. I know a voice recognition user who depends on the skip
> link to refresh the dragon database. Low vision AT users generally have a
> provision to navigate via headings, unless someone is using an ‘ease of
> access’ type magnifier.
>
> The only point I want to make here is that using H42 (Using H1-H6 to
> identify headings) [SC 1.3.1: Info and Relationships], screen reader users
> can navigate and/or bypass blocks. When compared with H69 (Providing
> heading elements at the beginning of each section) [SC 2.4.1: Bypass
> Blocks], something tells me that H69 builds on top of H42.
>
> So is it necessary that H69 be a sufficient technique for SC 2.4.1 (bypass
> blocks) when H42 seems to address this in a different way?
>
> Some comments made by users in the past follow. Apologies if I did not
> summarize the pointers correctly:
>
> -          Where it was reported that H42 (under SC 1.3.1) and H69 should
> be merged into one (refer
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2011Apr/0010.html)
>
>
> -          Where a suggestion was made to include an ‘and’ between part 1
> (Creating Links to skip blocks ….) and 2 (Grouping blocks of repeated …)
> (refer
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2011Feb/0005.html)
>
> -Devarshi
>

Received on Friday, 11 May 2012 21:17:01 UTC