For context on what the OP means by "this makes the document structure completely flat to screen reader users", I highly recommend this video. It features a blind web developer navigating websites which do and do not make proper use of headings:
I would take it a bit further and ask all web developers to try to use your own site with a screen reader and turn off your monitors. It's quite an experience. For Windows, use JAWS, for Mac, use Voiceover (it's free and embedded to Mac OS)
The real problem is that assistive technology is very slow to catch up with the technology and are expensive. For example, JAWS, one of the most popular screen readers, is around thousand dollars, and people purchase these type of software not on a regular basis and don't update year to year. Even if the screen readers catches up, it will be a while until the adoption spreads due to the high cost. Also, as you can imagine, disabled people do not make a lot of money ON AVERAGE (not saying you can't be well off being disabled), so upgrades do not happen often.
Another thing that sucks is that reader interface are not standardized. Try using JAWS, then Voiceover on Mac OS. Way you use them is very different and way it works is different too.
Accessibility is a tough problem, but I don't think we should hold back on using modern technologies and process. We should definitely have accessibility in our minds and know in our heads that it is hurting some users in using these new technologies however.
What about the usage of tags such as <header> being nested inside <section>s? This is what I've taken to lately in my limited web dev, because it feels like the correct way forward.
Though I'm guessing those new HTML tags probably also don't have widespread adoption among accessibility tools.
There’s no problem with doing this, but a header tag in and of itself doesn’t signify a heading within the document outline. You need to use an h1-6 for that (as far as I understand it, I’m still getting my head around the outlining algorithm).
Does anyone have idea if using h1 only will still affect adverse to sites Google ranking. It used to be that using h1 several times was not good for SEO.
Not that I've experienced. Good content, good incoming links, etc., seem to be far, far more important than whether you only use one h1 per page...and rightly so.
[+] [-] qeorge|15 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmUPhEVWu_E
It literally changed the way I thought about web development and accessibility.
[+] [-] mokkos|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mokkos|15 years ago|reply
Another thing that sucks is that reader interface are not standardized. Try using JAWS, then Voiceover on Mac OS. Way you use them is very different and way it works is different too.
Accessibility is a tough problem, but I don't think we should hold back on using modern technologies and process. We should definitely have accessibility in our minds and know in our heads that it is hurting some users in using these new technologies however.
[+] [-] jbrennan|15 years ago|reply
Though I'm guessing those new HTML tags probably also don't have widespread adoption among accessibility tools.
[+] [-] robin_reala|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dirtyaura|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] necolas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] estel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dreamdu5t|15 years ago|reply