We’ve made some custom panels and assigned the ‘Other’ category to them. We later found when running accessibility tests that selecting this category makes the panels perform a ‘complimentary’ landmark role. Panels under the ‘Information’ category are also complimentary. See full results below:
When we noticed this, we corrected the categories of our custom so they matched the desired landmark roles we wanted them to before but thought it would be worth mentioning. Could the documentation for New Panel Creation be updated to note that panel category selection has a relationship to landmark roles?
Hello!
In the 15.9 relase we updated the panels to try and give them better accessibility for screen readers. I figured a complementary role would fit the best for the average panel.
I also decided to use a default navigation role for navigation panels. If you want to use the same role for your custom panels, you can use the new velocity macro #navigationPanelHeader instead of #panelheader in your macro content (see source).
Thank you for the report, I’ll update the documentation you linked
What is the role you gave to your custom panels?
Let me know if you have any further remarks on the updated landmark system
This is super helpful information. We had created custom nav panels for each of our ‘spaces’ and put them under ‘Other’ initially to distinguish them from the default panels. Definitely our mistake To clarify, if we switch to using #navigationPanelHeader in our velocity macros, will the panel take on a navigation landmark role, regardless of the category we assign it to?
We are also currently using My Favourites, Recently Visited, and the Tips panel on the right-side to provide a more tailored experience for navigating through the wiki. We view these panels as supporting sections for users. My Favourites and Tips are currently in the Information category and display as complimentary. Can we make ‘Recently Visited’ a complimentary landmark by assigning it to the ‘Information’ category as well or is there a more preferred way to assign this role? I see in the velocity script for this panel macro that it uses #navigationPanelHeader.
Yup, if you check the source for the default panels, all the ones in the navigation category should use this #navigationPanelHeader, it’s hard coded and not something related to the category
For now, you should change the macro used in the velocity script if you want to change the role. Changing the category will have no impact on the role. For the standard panels I think we want to keep the role consistent with the category, so I made sure all macros with the navigation category had the navigation role. However it’s hard coded so it’s a consistency anyone can break easily. Nothing prevents you to add a navigation panel with the complementary role or add another kind of panel with the navigation role
If you think an improvement to make it easier to pick the role of the panel would be convenient, feel free to open a ticket on the community Jira
