Also from the same page a very interesting point that I have not given much thought:
> Screen readers
> I’ve always assumed that adding detailed structural semantics to an HTML document is a good idea. I started to doubt if this is such a good idea when I observed casual computer users who depend on a screen reader. All elements that have some relevant semantic value, like heading levels, navigation items, links and forms get this meaning attached to it, which is spoken out loud. So this page would’t simply start with the title spoken out, but it would sound like heading level one, The defaults suck. When a page consist of many elements, things can become very annoying.
> My impulsive reaction was to create websites without any structural semantics in them. Bram Duvigneau pointed out that, while this might indeed help some casual screen reader users, it would very much cripple the experience for experienced users.
I've thought about stripping away some HTML semantics to make screen reader navigation less "wordy." Navigation menus are often coded as unordered lists. I've considered not making them lists because I'll keep menu length manageable (no more than 7) and I know the screen reader will announce "link" plus the link text for every item; the separation between items should still be clear. But it might not be clear when they reached the end and it would be contrary to the norms users are familiar with; I wouldn't make this change without testing it with multiple real screen reader users.
Also from the same page a very interesting point that I have not given much thought:
> Screen readers
> I’ve always assumed that adding detailed structural semantics to an HTML document is a good idea. I started to doubt if this is such a good idea when I observed casual computer users who depend on a screen reader. All elements that have some relevant semantic value, like heading levels, navigation items, links and forms get this meaning attached to it, which is spoken out loud. So this page would’t simply start with the title spoken out, but it would sound like heading level one, The defaults suck. When a page consist of many elements, things can become very annoying.