Landmark regions
Also known as: ARIA landmarks, HTML5 landmarks
Landmark regions are the major sections of a page — header, navigation, main content, footer — marked up so screen-reader users can jump straight to the part they want.
In plain terms
Sighted users scan a page and instantly spot the menu, the main article and the footer. Landmarks give screen-reader users the same shortcut: they can pull up a list of regions and jump to "main" without tabbing through the whole header every time. You get them by using <header>, <nav>, <main> and <footer>.
Why it matters
Landmarks make big pages far faster to navigate and are part of passing WCAG 1.3.1. They also pair with a skip link to let keyboard users bypass repeated navigation.
Wrapping your article in <main> lets a screen-reader user press one shortcut and skip past the logo, search box and menu.
Related terms
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