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Stop Treating Accessibility Audits Like a Checklist
Getting accessibility audits right starts with understanding landmark elements in practice. You know the drill. You run an accessibility scan, and the report spits back a laundry list of problems. “Page missing a main landmark.” “Ensure landmarks are unique.” It’s tempting to just treat these as annoying boxes to check, another round of semantic whack a mole to get that perfect score.
But here’s what those warnings are really saying, if you listen closely. Your website is a confusing, shapeless mess to someone who can’t see it. Imagine trying to navigate a new city with no street signs, no neighborhoods, no landmarks. Just buildings. That’s exactly what your page feels like to someone using a screen reader when your HTML has no structure.
This is where landmark elements come in. I’m talking about the simple HTML5 tags you might be ignoring: <main>, <nav>, <aside>, <header>, <footer>. These aren’t just code salad for auditors. They’re the street signs, districts, and major monuments of your webpage. They answer the basic questions every user has: “Where am I right now?” “Where’s the actual content?” “How do I get to the menu?”
Getting accessibility audits to pass isn’t about pleasing a scanner. It’s about building a mental map for real people. It turns a frustrating audit into actual, meaningful design when you implement landmark elements in practice.
Why Landmark Elements Actually Matter for Accessibility Audits
People using screen readers don’t experience the web like you do. They don’t just start at the top and read down, that would be agonizingly slow. Instead, they navigate by jumping. They can pull up a list of all the landmarks on your page with a single keystroke and jump straight to the area they want, just like you visually scan for a menu or a search bar.
Without proper landmark elements in practice, that list is practically empty. The user is stuck in an endless sea of generic <div> tags, forced to crawl through every single element to find anything. It’s like searching for one specific store in a massive mall where all the directory signs are blank.
Good landmark elements do three simple but powerful things for accessibility audits and real users:
- They orient users, explaining what each major section is for.
- They create efficiency, letting users jump straight to what matters.
- They set expectations, creating a consistent, predictable experience across the web.
The 5 Landmark Elements You Need for Audits
You don’t need to memorize a dictionary of obscure ARIA roles. For almost every website, these five tags will get you 95% of the way there when preparing for accessibility audits.
1. <main> – The Star of the Show
This tag wraps the primary, unique content of the page. There should only be one <main> per page. This is the destination.
- Put inside: The blog post, the product description, the dashboard, the form someone needs to fill out.
- Keep out: Your global header, sidebar, footer, or repeated navigation blocks.
- Simple test: If you stripped away everything else (ads, nav, footer), what’s left should be inside your
<main>.
html
<body>
<header>...</header>
<nav>...</nav>
<!-- This is the most important part of the page -->
<main id="main-content">
<h1>The Article You Came For</h1>
<p>All the unique content lives right here.</p>
</main>
<aside>...</aside>
<footer>...</footer>
</body> 2. <nav> – Your Site’s Roadmap
Wrap any major collection of navigation links in a <nav>. Your main menu, a table of contents, or pagination controls are perfect examples.
- Pro Tip: If you have more than one (like a main menu and a sidebar menu), give them descriptive labels so users can tell them apart.html<nav aria-label=”Primary Site Menu”>…</nav> <nav aria-label=”Article Chapters”>…</nav>
3. <header> & <footer> – The Page’s Bookends
These are usually for the site wide top and bottom sections. The <header> typically holds your logo, main <nav>, and search. The <footer> is for copyright, contact links, and legal stuff.
- Remember: These are semantic tags, not just fancy
<div>for CSS. They create landmarks. - Don’t overuse them: Don’t wrap every little component header/footer in these tags. Save them for the major page level sections.
4. <aside> – The Supporting Actor
This is for content that’s related to the main content but not essential. Think sidebars, author bios, related article links, or pull quotes. If you removed the <aside>, the <main> content should still make complete sense.
- Not a junk drawer: Don’t throw random, unrelated widgets in here just because they’re positioned to the side.
5. <form> & <search> – The Action Stations
While not a visual “region,” a <form> (especially with role="search") and the newer <search> element are announced as landmarks. They tell users, “Here’s where you can do something.”
html
<form role="search"> <!-- Creates a "search" landmark --> <!-- search inputs --> </form>
Common Accessibility Audit Errors for Landmark Elements
When your accessibility audits fail or a screen reader user gets confused, it’s usually one of these four issues with your landmark elements in practice.
The Error: “Page missing a main landmark.”
- What you did: Wrapped your content in a plain
<div class="content">. - The fix: Change that
<div>to a<main>.
The Error: “Landmarks must be unique.”
- What you did: Have two
<nav>or two<aside>sections with no way to distinguish them. - The fix: Label them with
aria-label.html<nav aria-label=”User Account Links”>…</nav> <nav aria-label=”Help & Support”>…</nav>
The Error: “Ensure landmarks are contained…”
- What you did: Put a
<main>landmark inside a<nav>landmark, creating a weird structural hierarchy. - The fix: Keep your major landmarks as siblings. It’s fine for a
<nav>to be inside a<header>, but your primary<main>should be on its own.
The Error: “All content must be in a landmark.”
- What you did: Left a “promo banner” or “skip link” floating outside any defined region.
- The fix: Wrap orphaned content in an appropriate landmark (maybe an
<aside>) or move it into an existing one (like putting a utility link in the<header>).
A Practical Fix for Accessibility Audits
Here’s what a typical, unstructured blog post looks like in code:
html
<body>
<div class="top">Logo, Search</div> <!-- Lost in space -->
<div class="menu">...</div> <!-- Invisible to navigation -->
<div class="content">
<h1>My Post</h1>
<p>Post content...</p>
</div>
<div class="sidebar">Author Bio</div> <!-- Just a div -->
<div class="bottom">Copyright</div> <!-- Orphaned -->
</body> To a screen reader: This is maybe 2 landmarks total. The user has to tediously explore every element.
Here’s the fixed version with proper landmark elements in practice:
html
<body>
<header>
<a href="#main-content">Skip to Content</a>
<div class="top">Logo, Search</div> <!-- Now part of header -->
<nav aria-label="Main Navigation">
<div class="menu">...</div>
</nav>
</header>
<main id="main-content">
<article>
<h1>My Post</h1>
<p>Post content...</p>
</article>
</main>
<aside aria-label="About the Author">
<div class="sidebar">Author Bio</div>
</aside>
<footer>
<div class="bottom">Copyright</div>
</footer>
</body> Now, a screen reader sees: Banner (header), Navigation, Main, Complementary (aside), Contentinfo (footer). The user can jump anywhere instantly.
Pro Tips for Passing Accessibility Audits
- Test With Your Ears: The single best thing you can do. Turn on VoiceOver (Mac), Narrator (Windows), or TalkBack (Android). Open your page, pull up the landmarks list, and try to navigate using only them. It’s eye opening (or ear-opening). Guides like WebAIM’s screen reader shortcuts are gold for this.
- Order is Logical: Landmark elements in practice should follow a sensible order in your code. The
<main>usually comes after the<header>and main<nav>. - One
<main>to Rule Them All: Don’t nest them. You only get one per page. - Use Native HTML: Prefer
<nav>over<div role="navigation">. The built-in elements work better and are simpler. The official W3C ARIA Landmarks specification provides the complete standard for reference. - Pair with Headings: Inside a
<nav>, consider adding a heading (like<h2 class="visually-hidden">Site Menu</h2>) to clearly announce its purpose.
The Real Goal: Building for People, Not Scanners
Fixing landmark elements to pass an accessibility audit is just the start. The real win is changing your mindset. You’re not adding role="main" to check a box. You’re planting a <main> beacon for someone trying to get something done. You’re not labeling a <nav> to silence a warning. You’re putting up a clear street sign at a major intersection.
A page with good landmark elements in practice is an act of respect. It says, “I thought about how you’d move through here, and I built you a map.” Start with these five tags, test with a real screen reader, and watch those annoying accessibility audits transform into a clear, navigable structure that works for everyone. That’s what accessibility is really about.
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