Missing Landmark Regions

Missing landmark regions occur when a page does not use HTML5 sectioning elements (<header>, <nav>, <main>, <footer>, <aside>) or equivalent ARIA landmark roles (role="banner", role="navigation", role="main", role="contentinfo", role="complementary") to identify the major sections of the page. WCAG Success Criterion 1.3.1 (Level A) requires that structural information conveyed through visual presentation is also available programmatically.

Landmarks serve as a page outline for assistive technology users. Just as sighted users can visually identify the header, navigation, main content, and footer of a page, screen reader users should be able to jump directly to these sections using landmark navigation shortcuts. Without landmarks, screen reader users must navigate through the entire page linearly, which is the equivalent of reading a book without a table of contents.

The most common failure is a page built entirely with <div> elements. A <div class="header">, <div class="nav">, and <div class="content"> structure looks correct visually but provides no semantic information to assistive technologies. Replacing these with <header>, <nav>, and <main> adds landmark semantics with zero visual change.

Screen reader users rely on landmarks as one of their primary navigation strategies. NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver all provide shortcuts to list and jump between landmarks (D key in NVDA, semicolon in JAWS, rotor in VoiceOver). Without landmarks, these shortcuts produce no results, and users lose a major navigation tool.

For a long page with a complex layout, the absence of landmarks means the user must navigate linearly through hundreds of elements to reach the content they need. This is analogous to a sighted user visiting a page where the header, navigation, and content areas have no visual distinction -- everything runs together in one undifferentiated block.

Landmarks also benefit users of assistive technologies like switch access and voice control by providing target regions for efficient navigation. A user can say "Go to main content" or "Navigate to navigation" -- but only if these landmarks exist in the page structure.

Scrutia analyzes the DOM structure of every page and checks for the presence of HTML5 landmark elements or equivalent ARIA roles. It flags pages missing a <main> element, pages without <nav> landmarks, and pages where the header and footer are built with generic <div> elements. The report includes a landmark outline of the current page and a recommended structure.