a11y-outline - web extension to navigate page outlines easily

Many screen readers like JAWS or NVDA have shortcuts to bring up a list of landmarks, headings or links. This browser extension provides the same functionality without requiring a screen reader. It therefore implements Success Criterion 1.9.1 of UAAG20.

This is mainly useful for two audiences:

• Sighted web developers who want to get a feeling for how blind users might experience their content.
• Sighted users who like this kind of navigation.

Installation

Firefox

See https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/a11y-outline/

Chrome

• Download the latest release and unpack.
• In chrome, navigate to chrome://extensions/.
• Make sure that "Developer mode" is checked.
• Use "Load unpacked extension…"
• You may need to add the keyboard shortcut manually (at the bottom of the extensions page).

Bookmarklet

A bookmarklet is available on https://xi.github.io/a11y-outline/.

Building manually

Running make should be sufficient.

Usage

Pressing Ctrl+Shift+7 brings up a dialog. You can use the up/down arrow keys to select a list. With the tab key you can switch to the actual list and navigate it with arrow keys.`

Optionally you can create shortcuts for some additional commands in your browser settings.

Note on HTML5 outline algorithm

This extension does not implement the HTML5 outline algorithm, as that is also not available in common screen readers and works very differently from the WAI-ARIA based outlines used here.