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The situation for new HTML5 elements is different and likely to remain so for some time. It will be years before New HTML5 elements get robust accessibility support implemented across browsers and platforms. This is particularly so for non interactive elements such as the new HTML5 structural elements because  accessibility APIs in general do not have defined roles for many non interactive elements. In this case it is recommended to add the appropriate ARIA roles to elements that are meant to convey meaning but are effectively meaningless due to lack of implemented accessibility support. For example, adding role=navigation to a nav element fills the gaps in support for HTML5 semantics as ARIA  is more robustly  supported by most modern browsers and assistive technology:

/* * Hide from both screenreaders and browsers: h5bp.com/u */.hidden {    display: none !important;    visibility: hidden;}/* * Hide only visually, but have it available for screenreaders: h5bp.com/v */.visuallyhidden {    border: 0;    clip: rect(0 0 0 0);    height: 1px;    margin: -1px;    overflow: hidden;    padding: 0;    position: absolute;    width: 1px;}/* * Extends the .visuallyhidden class to allow the element to be focusable * when navigated to via the keyboard: h5bp.com/p */.visuallyhidden.focusable:active,.visuallyhidden.focusable:focus {    clip: auto;    height: auto;    margin: 0;    overflow: visible;    position: static;    width: auto;}/* * Hide visually and from screenreaders, but maintain layout */.invisible {    visibility: hidden;}

The following table illustrates support and interaction features for a number of structural HTML elements. The information is based on support for these elements by the JAWS screen reader.

Use <header>, <footer> as often as your content requires – only the main header and footer carry implicit banner and contentinfo roles. At a minimum, use them once (assuming you have a page header and footer, that is). Always use <nav> for the primary navigation. Use <main>, but only once per page.

We've only begun using and testing this technique, so even this may not be perfect. Any feedback and suggestions are quite welcome.

Sighted keyboard users generally navigate through the links and form fields on a web page using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys on the keyboard. To help ensure they can visually identify which link or form field they have navigated to, you can add the following to your CSS file: a:focus { outline:1px solid red; background:yellow; } The colors may need to be customized to fit your site design, but they should be fairly distinctive. To take this tip one step further, you can search your CSS files for a:hover and in each instance change it to a:hover, a:focus. This will ensure that keyboard users get the same visual highlighting when they navigate to items as mouse users get when they hover over an item.

Some sites currently circumvent the validation problem by adding WAI-ARIA attributes to the source code via a script that is executed when the page loads.

While there is no official length restriction on the length of alt text, many experts recommend 125 characters or fewer because of restrictions within the JAWS screen reader.