Article Audit: Use skip navigation links

[alexroseb]

Reviewed as per #669. This article should be a little more fleshed out and some of the information seems a bit outdated (specifically the section about the JavaScript polyfill).

[p2635]

Hi @alexroseb @ericwbailey , I'm looking for good first issues to work on. Is there anything outstanding on this? It looks done to me.

[ericwbailey]

One thing I'm thinking would be helpful for this post in particular would be explaining the different behaviors a screen reader would perform depending on if the skip link target is a landmark container or a heading element.

Is this something you'd be interested in clarifying, @p2635?

[p2635]

Hi @ericwbailey, I'm still new to accessibility to be honest and contributing to open source projects. I'm slowly building my confidence now.

Explaining the different behaviors a screen reader would perform depending on if the skip link target is a landmark container or a heading element.

Forgive me for being ignorant but I'm a bit confused actually 😕 . I don't see a difference, because a skip link goes to wherever you define it right? (Other than the announcement maybe) Are you referring to general navigation between landmarks vs navigation between headings?

Perhaps I can play around with a screen reader to grasp what you're saying. I'm willing to help write something up if you point me in the right direction. Equally happy to leave this and work on other stuff that suits my level/knowledge 😃

[ericwbailey]

I don't see a difference, because a skip link goes to wherever you define it right? (Other than the announcement maybe) Are you referring to general navigation between landmarks vs navigation between headings?

Most screen readers will read what they are focused on with default settings, so if it is a container it will be all the container's contents. If it's a heading, it will just be the heading's string. There's circumstances where you'd want to use either approach, so I don't think there's a hard and fast rule over what is objectively better for all situations.

I think if experimenting with a screen reader is something you'd be interested in doing to test this that it'd be a great start! NVDA is free, runs on Windows, and is relatively easy to get started using. A reduced test case CodePen would also be a great way to check out the behavior for yourself.

Happy to let you update the post you want, or we could also do it. Whichever you prefer!

[WW3]

Two more things to consider: Skip links on mobile, and whether skip links should be "visible" only to keyboard/screen reader users.

On Thu, Mar 2, 2023 at 2:37 AM Eric Bailey @.***> wrote:

I don't see a difference, because a skip link goes to wherever you define it right? (Other than the announcement maybe) Are you referring to general navigation between landmarks vs navigation between headings?

Most screen readers will read what they are focused on with default settings, so if it is a container it will be all the container's contents. If it's a heading, it will just be the heading's string. There's circumstances where you'd want to use either approach, so I don't think there's a hard and fast rule over what is objectively better for all situations.

I think if experimenting with a screen reader is something you'd be interested in doing to test this that it'd be a great start! NVDA https://www.nvaccess.org/download/ is free, runs on Windows, and is relatively easy to get started using. A reduced test case CodePen would also be a great way to check out the behavior for yourself.

Happy to let you update the post you want, or we could also do it. Whichever you prefer!

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