Warning: Patrick looms large in various discussions
I have been meaning to start a periodic noting of meaty articles and threads related to subjects close to my technical heart. Today intent meets action. Here’s a few that have tickled my fancy of late:
- Semantics to Screen Readers – great introduction to assistive tech (AT)/browser accessibility API topic. Also see Accessibility APIs: A Key To Web Accessibility
- Short note on scoping mechanisms – The need for and required use of the
scopeattribute is overplayed… - HTML5 Landmarks Exposed – Current reality of HTML ‘landmark’ semantics support across browsers and AT.
- How do You Test Success Criterion 1.3.5 on Mobile Applications? – Can it be tested? Is it applicable to native mobile? Best Practice vs WCAG 2.1 Conformance. Related discussions:
- Use of
objectelement?
@stevefaulkner Do you know any resources for making <object> accessible? I was toying with using it for its fallback HTML for cases where `alt` is insufficient, like comics
— Taylor Hunt (@tigt_) May 14, 2019
- 1.4.4 – Clarification needed for Success Criterion for mobile browsers – Discussion on mobile browsers and text resizing
- Thread: Placeholder and Accessible Name Computation – Just because we don’t like something, we can’t spec it away.
- There was recently a splash, grump and kerfuffle about about Google’s promotion of a new (experimental) HTML element by the name of
portalI subsequently had a gander at it: Short note on the portal element
That’s almost it for #1, but first a question: feel free to provide your answer as a comment on this article.
See the Pen
heading level WCAG conformance question by steve faulkner (@stevef)
on CodePen.
Comments
This one? heading level 1 some text heading level 4 Joe: not a failure, but not a recommended practice Or this one? BIG Heading subtitle for BIG heading Failure against WCAG 1.3.1 A under F43: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 due to using structural markup in a way that does not represent relationships in the content (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/F43.html)
Both fail. After
,
should follow.
Your heading question is an interesting one – and one that certainly deserves more discussion and clarity.
In my opinion, #1 is not a failure of WCAG, except at Level AAA under 2.4.10. Many will indicate this as being a 1.3.1 failure, but the W3C does not have a defined failure for improperly-leveled headings under 1.3.1. Additionally, the impact on users is typically quite minimal (though can easily increase if present numerous times on one page). As such, I do not consider it a 1.3.1 failure, even though proper heading structures are certainly best practice.
2 is a bit trickier. As above, this would be a 2.4.10 failure, but one likely could not consider it a 1.3.1 failure simply because of the incorrect heading-level usage. One could, however, possibly consider it a 1.3.1 failure if they believe the sub-heading to not really be a distinct heading at all.
so, are you going to tell us? I can’t stand the suspense …
It really is a matter of hierarchical intent. #1 is not a failure but does not follow best practices: H4 can follow H1 without H2. It is not best practice for sure and it is likely someone manipulating heading styles to display text size in a way that is pleasing to their visual preference. #2 However would be a failure. If, in fact, the H5 is the first piece of text on the page, you are basically hiding information from the user through the initial use of the H5 before the H1. Again, hierarchy is, in essence, navigation. If you are using shortcut keys to navigate through heading levels, you will simply not hear the H5. In addition, most automated checkers will fail this as well.