Context-sensitive navigation to webpage regions of given types

[benjaminhawkeslewis]

Allow rapid navigation to regions of a given type within webpages, web applications and widgets, using lists and/or next/last shortcut keys.

Key types include: navigation areas, main content, articles, and search functionality. These would be contextualized if you were within a particular widget.

Potential markup to support this includes HTML4 markup (MENU, DIR, REL="search" pointing to an internal fragment), proposed ARIA landmark roles ("navigation", "main", "search"), proprietary extensions (INPUT TYPE="search") and proposed HTML5 markup (NAV, SECTION, ARTICLE).

Labels could be derived for regions from headings, TITLE attributes, and proposed ARIA markup like LABELLEDBY.

Heuristics might be able to provide similar functionality even in pages without this markup.

Compare discussion of how ARIA landmark roles should be used and interpreted at:

•  http://preview.tinyurl.com/3zlyfb [Mozilla dev-accessibility]

•  http://preview.tinyurl.com/4lcxr5 [wai-xtech]

[jteh]

Would it be correct to call all of these regions "landmarks" (as opposed to "ARIA landmarks")? Accessibility APIs should have a concept of "landmarks"; see  MozillaBug:459395. This will allow the various forms of markup to be exposed simply as landmarks, thus unifying the interface to ATs.

Note that this functionality can (and probably should) only be available in our virtual buffers. Web applications (i.e. where document browsing concepts are not used at all) should act as desktop applications and provide similar ways to navigate.

What do you mean by contextualising if in a particular widget? Can you provide an example?

[tlog333]

Verifying if this should be included in new issue or can be added here.

NVDA should begin reading from role="main" content on a webpage by default. This would allow in the future for authors to remove the skip navigation link that currently exists on their pages by appropriately marking up the content. One example page is  http://codetalks.org

A user navigating to the  http://codetalks.org should start from the section heading "Main Page" rather than hearing the banner and navigation bars.

[jteh]

Replying to tlog333:

Verifying if this should be included in new issue or can be added here.

It could possibly be encompassed by this ticket. However, because this ticket is quite broad and I'm still not entirely sure what this ticket is about, I'd recommend opening a new ticket. File it under virtual buffers.