In plain English
Some people with cognitive disabilities use tools that reshape a page: adding picture symbols to buttons, hiding clutter, or highlighting the main content. Those tools only work if your code says what each part is for, this region is the navigation, this is the main content, this control is the search. This AAA rule asks for that machine-readable purpose.
In practice it is mostly clean, semantic markup: real landmark regions and standard
roles rather than a page built entirely from anonymous <div>s.
Who this is for
- People with cognitive differences using personalisation or simplification tools.
How to check and fix it yourself
Use proper landmark regions and roles so the structure is programmatically clear.
<header>...</header>
<nav aria-label="Main">...</nav>
<main>...</main>
<footer>...</footer>Avoid building the whole page from bare <div>s. Where you collect user info, also
mark input purposes (that pairs with rule 1.3.5).
Where we can help
We check whether your page exposes its structure through real landmarks and roles, or hides it inside generic containers. Semantic structure underpins many items on the common failures list.