Helping people navigate quickly.
THE PROBLEM
A keyboard or screen reader user reaching a page must pass through the entire navigation before the content.
On every page. That is tedious.
SKIP LINKS
A link at the very top, usually hidden until focused, that jumps to the main content.
The first thing Tab reaches. Press Enter and you are at the content.
Simple to add and genuinely helpful.
LANDMARKS
Regions identifying parts of the page: header, navigation, main content, footer, search.
Screen readers let users jump between them.
Modern HTML elements provide these automatically if used correctly: header, nav, main, footer.
USING THEM
One main element per page, containing the primary content.
Navigation in a nav element.
That alone gives screen reader users a usable structure.
WHAT NOT TO DO
Build a page entirely from generic containers, which conveys no structure.
TESTING
A browser extension can list the landmarks on a page.
If there are none, the page has no structure for assistive technology.
