What is ARIA Landmark?
An ARIA landmark is a role (such as navigation, main, or contentinfo) that defines regions of a page for assistive technologies. ARIA landmarks let screen-reader users jump directly to key sections.
Why ARIA Landmark matters
Sighted users find the navigation, the main content and the footer by looking; screen-reader users need the page to say where they are. Landmark roles (banner, navigation, main, complementary, contentinfo, search, form, region) label the regions of a page so assistive technology can list them and jump straight to the content instead of tabbing through sixty links every time. In modern HTML the elements <header>, <nav>, <main>, <aside> and <footer> carry these roles automatically.
The rules are simple: exactly one main, every piece of content inside some landmark, and a label when the same role appears twice (two navigations need aria-label="Primary" and aria-label="Footer"). Skip links complement landmarks for keyboard users who are not using a screen reader.
Example
Semantic elements that create the landmarks for free:
<header>…logo, <nav aria-label="Primary">…</nav></header>
<main id="main">…the page…</main>
<aside aria-label="Related guides">…</aside>
<footer><nav aria-label="Footer">…</nav></footer>No ARIA attributes needed except the labels that tell two navigations apart.
Common mistakes
- •A page built entirely from
<div>elements with no landmarks at all. - •Two or more
<main>elements, or content outside any landmark. - •Adding
role="navigation"to a<nav>that already has it.
How Webmatik checks it
Webmatik's Page structure for screen readers check looks for the main landmark and the other regions on the audited page, and Skip to content shortcut checks for the skip link that lets keyboard users jump past the header.
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