Fixes sidebar navigation not exposed as a separate navigation landmark by jacobo-dominguez-wgu · Pull Request #2026 · openedx/frontend-app-learning

jacobo-dominguez-wgu · 2026-08-28T16:56:18Z

Description

Fixes an accessibility issue on the courseware page where the course-outline sidebar was not exposed as its own landmark and the <main> landmark included both the sidebar navigation and the primary sequence content, making the page structure unclear for screen-reader users.

Fixes #2096

After this change:

The course-outline sidebar is a <nav> landmark with an accessible name (aria-label="Course outline").
The <main> landmark contains only the primary sequence content; the sidebar is a sibling outside of <main>.
The "Skip to main content" anchor (#main-content) now lives on the semantic <main> element, which is the correct WCAG-aligned skip target.

Problem

Before:

<main>                              ← includes everything
  breadcrumbs, tab nav, alerts
  <section class="outline-sidebar"> ← generic region, no accessible name
    …course outline links…
  </section>
  <div class="sequence">            ← primary content
    …unit + navigation…
  </div>
</main>

Screen readers announced a single main landmark containing both the navigation and the reading content, and the sidebar had no distinct landmark or accessible name.

Solution

After:

<div>                                                        (LoadedTabPage)
  breadcrumbs, tab nav, alerts
  <div class="container-xl d-flex flex-column flex-grow-1">
    <div class="sequence-container …">
      <nav class="outline-sidebar" aria-label="Course outline">   ← navigation landmark
        …course outline links…
      </nav>
      <main id="main-content" class="sequence w-100">             ← main landmark, primary content only
        …unit + navigation…
      </main>
      <RightSidebarSlot />
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Non-courseware tabs (outline, dates, progress, discussion, lti_live) still receive a <main> from LoadedTabPage exactly as before — the swap is scoped to activeTabSlug === 'courseware'.

Accessibility impact

Landmarks pass in axe / WAVE / VoiceOver rotor: the page now exposes a distinct Course outline navigation landmark and a main landmark that contains only the primary content.
Skip link (#main-content) now targets the semantic <main> element, matching the WAI-ARIA recommendation.
Non-courseware tabs are unchanged — their existing <main id="main-content"> landmark still wraps the tab content.

Testing

Manual QA suggestions:
- VoiceOver / NVDA landmark rotor on /course/:courseId/:sequenceId/:unitId should now list a navigation landmark named "Course outline" and a main landmark that does not contain the sidebar.
- Confirm the "Skip to main content" link (if enabled by the shell/header) lands directly at the sequence content.
- Sanity-check layout of course outline, dates, progress, discussion, and live tabs — no visual change expected.

Screenshots

No visual changes intended. All modifications are DOM-semantics only.

AI assistance disclosure

The modifications of this PR — including the semantic-landmark refactor, the layout-preserving CSS cleanup, and the new landmark-structure tests — were made with the assistance of Claude Opus 4.7.

openedx-webhooks · 2026-08-28T16:56:24Z

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codecov · 2026-08-28T17:02:34Z

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 93.59%. Comparing base (020a3ee) to head (5e080fe).
⚠️ Report is 25 commits behind head on master.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #2026      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   93.53%   93.59%   +0.05%     
==========================================
  Files         363      367       +4     
  Lines        5905     6007     +102     
  Branches     1367     1418      +51     
==========================================
+ Hits         5523     5622      +99     
- Misses        367      368       +1     
- Partials       15       17       +2

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brian-smith-tcril

This is definitely worth addressing, but I have some concerns with the proposed solution in this PR.

I'd like to hear @kblemel's thoughts on this one.

brian-smith-tcril · 2026-08-31T13:47:07Z

        verifiedMode={verifiedMode}
      />
-      <main className="d-flex flex-column flex-grow-1">
+      <PageWrapper className="d-flex flex-column flex-grow-1">


This feels awkward to me. Without this PR the main-content div doesn't contain the AlertList or CourseTabsNavigationSlot. This seems to be splitting main from the main-content div, which doesn't feel right to me.

That was i mistake, I have fixed it.

… <main>

jacobo-dominguez-wgu · 2026-09-22T18:24:09Z

GH issue referenced, pinging @openedx/openedx-product-managers for review

jacobo-dominguez-wgu · 2026-10-05T22:29:11Z

Hi @itsjeyd how is the product review process going? Is there anything I can help with?

itsjeyd · 2026-10-06T14:23:07Z

@jacobo-dominguez-wgu Same note here.

jacobo-dominguez-wgu · 2026-10-06T15:28:55Z

Thanks @itsjeyd. Friendly reminder @openedx/openedx-product-managers pinging for product review.

brian-smith-tcril

I think this makes sense and we should move ahead with landing it.

arbrandes

Makes sense to me!

bradenmacdonald · 2026-10-26T22:04:38Z

@jacobo-dominguez-wgu @brian-smith-tcril Tests are failing on master since this merged. Can you please open a fix?

brian-smith-tcril · 2026-10-26T22:07:21Z

@bradenmacdonald ~~I'm looking into it now~~

edit: #2229

#2229) The landmark tests added in #2026 were written against a base from before #2110, #2154 and #2168. Course.test.jsx no longer defines Course or testStore, so lint fails on master; LoadedTabPage now throws without seeded course metadata, so the non-courseware landmark test failed and the courseware one passed against the error page. Course.test.jsx: render through renderCourse, like the rest of the file. LoadedTabPage.test.jsx: renderWithMetadata takes props and an options object with children, and both landmark tests render through it. Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

openedx-webhooks added open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U core contributor PR author is a Core Contributor (who may or may not have write access to this repo). labels Aug 28, 2026

openedx-webhooks added this to Contributions Aug 28, 2026

github-project-automation Bot moved this to Needs Triage in Contributions Aug 28, 2026

jacobo-dominguez-wgu requested review from a team, brian-smith-tcril and diana-villalvazo-wgu August 28, 2026 17:54

deborahgu approved these changes Aug 28, 2026

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brian-smith-tcril reviewed Aug 31, 2026

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jacobo-dominguez-wgu force-pushed the fix/a11y-nav-main-tags branch from b97a94d to ab14327 Compare September 2, 2026 20:31

fix(a11y): expose sidebar as navigation landmark and separate it from…

5e080fe

… <main>

jacobo-dominguez-wgu force-pushed the fix/a11y-nav-main-tags branch from ab14327 to 5e080fe Compare September 2, 2026 20:33

jacobo-dominguez-wgu mentioned this pull request Sep 8, 2026

Associate search input with visible heading label #2027

Open

itsjeyd added the product review PR requires product review before merging label Sep 15, 2026

itsjeyd moved this from Needs Triage to Product Review in Contributions Sep 15, 2026

brian-smith-tcril mentioned this pull request Oct 26, 2026

Skip link targets the shell's #main-content div, not the app's <main> openedx/frontend-base#328

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brian-smith-tcril approved these changes Oct 26, 2026

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arbrandes approved these changes Oct 26, 2026

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brian-smith-tcril merged commit 7a28e92 into openedx:master Oct 26, 2026
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github-project-automation Bot moved this from Product Review to Done in Contributions Oct 26, 2026

brian-smith-tcril mentioned this pull request Oct 26, 2026

test: render the landmark tests from #2026 through the current helpers #2229

Merged

This was referenced Oct 27, 2026

Port the courseware sequence and unit to frontend-base #2196

Open

Port the courseware navigation sidebar to frontend-base #2197

Open

refactor: port the dates tab to frontend-base #2234

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jacobo-dominguez-wgu mentioned this pull request Oct 29, 2026

Backport of: fix(a11y): expose sidebar as navigation landmark and separate it from… #2236

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Description

Problem

Solution

Accessibility impact

Testing

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AI assistance disclosure

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