[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #30589: Comments navigation template tags

[WordPress Trac]

#30589: Comments navigation template tags
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 Reporter:  obenland     |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  4.2
Component:  Themes       |     Version:  4.1
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch    |     Focuses:  template
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Comment (by afercia):

 Replying to [comment:7 obenland]:
 > Replying to [comment:6 afercia]:
 > > We quickly discussed this in the Accessibility team meeting yesterday,
 our concern is about 2 different issues:
 > >
 > > 1. the total number of navigation landmarks in a typical page.
 >
 > Right, five does feel like a lot.

 Thanks very much for your feedback. To clarify (my English!): I meant
 '''navigational''' landmarks:
 http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/roles#landmark_roles_header

 application
 banner
 complementary
 contentinfo
 form
 main
 navigation
 search

 they're all navigational landmarks. Screen readers will use them, for
 example with NVDA you press the key "d" and you can "jump" to the sections
 marked with those roles. That's what landmarks are meant for, a mechanism
 to
 [http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Using_ARIA_landmarks_to_identify_regions_of_a_page#Description
 quickly skip over blocks of content in the page]. This helps users a lot.

 Additionally, some HTML5 elements are mapped to landmark roles, they have
 an ''implicit'' landmark role:
 <main> -> role=main
 <header> -> role=banner
 <nav> -> role=navigation
 <aside> -> role=complementary
 etc.

 Screen readers will grab from the page both elements with a landmark role
 and elements that have an implicit landmark role. In our example they're
 13-14 not just 5. Between them 5 are <nav>s.

 Our concern is that the "jump" mechanism provided to users by landmarks is
 useful just if landmarks are ''reasonably'' limited in number and when
 it's easy to remember that a page has 4-5-6 main landmark sections and
 what kind of content I can find there.

 Having my screen reader announce there are 5 navigation areas, then 5-6 or
 even more (nested!) complementary areas, 1 main, 1 banner, 1 search, 1
 contentinfo etc. doesn't help me :)

 As a user, I would just want to know that pressing "d" no more than 5-6
 times I can quickly go through the whole page and get the main content or
 quickly reach the main navigation or the complementary content area.

 It depends on the theme used, yes. The screenshots in my previous comment
 come from Twenty Fifteen, based on _s (for reference, I know you know that
 :). But having core adding even more landmarks makes this issue harder to
 solve.

 TL;DR sorry, will stop here :) I would strongly recommend to reconsider
 this issue. We're all here to help users and, if possible, to help
 developers. But users first.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30589#comment:8>
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