Re: aria-level interpretation problem

It looks to me like there is an error in the algorithm generating the document. If you look at the Note callouts, they all have a heading level one higher than the containing section; if you look at the Caution callouts, they all concatenate the containing level with the digit one. I suspect they were intended to add the two digits together rather than concatenate them.

-Madeleine

Madeleine Rothberg
Senior Subject Matter Expert
617-300-2492


From: "wolfgang.berndorfer@zweiterblick.at" <wolfgang.berndorfer@zweiterblick.at>
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 8:49 AM
To: Post WAI list <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Subject: aria-level interpretation problem
Resent-From: Post WAI list <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at 8:47 AM

HI W3C and community,

Is a misinterpretation of aria-level > 6 an issue for WCAG (SC 1.3.1,  4.1.2) or a screen reader bug?

For a while I already wondered as a SR-user, why W3C documents flag some notes as H2.
Now I inspected such a component at:
https://www.w3.org/TR/epub-33/#sec-intro-relations


In the source was no role=note but an aria-heading with an extraordinary value for aria-level:

<div class="caution" id="caution-0">
<div
  role="heading"
  aria-level="31"
  class="caution-title marker">
<span>Caution</span>
</div>

For this component , JAWS as well as NVDA announces “heading 2” in Chrome, Edge and Firefox, each for desktop .

Possible problems using higher levels are well known:
“On elements with role heading<https://w3c.github.io/aria/#heading>, values for aria-level<https://w3c.github.io/aria/#aria-level> above 6 can create difficulties for users.”
(https://w3c.github.io/aria/#aria-level)

So, who has to be addressed for rectification?

My preferred mode to get an overview and navigate documents bases on heading hierarchy. And I know, I am not the only one.

Thanks,

Wolfgang