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  1. Hi, thanks for this reflection.

    I understand the wish for implicit section brakes in reader mode, but hr is unfortunately not suitable for it, according to HTML specification:

    “There is no need for an hr element between the sections themselves, since the section elements and the h1 elements imply thematic changes themselves”

    So maybe screen-readers should have a feature to allow announcing new sections (in reader mode) – where they have a name or start with heading – instead?

  2. In my opinion, the site should have a good heading hierarchy, always, and hr should not be read by screen readers. One site should have only one h1, one section starts with heading 2 is the best way. Reading hr tag will be quite noise and makes us confusing.

  3. Good questions. CSS HTML Validator displays this message when is used “For elements that are purely presentational, use role=”presentation” to silence screen readers to its presence. Otherwise can be useful for separating content sections (in addition to the section and heading elements).”.

  4. I do not find the separator element required but to those adding role=”presentation” to the element, you are taking the power away from screen reader developers and users. Please don’t do this. NVDA for example also has a dedicated separator jump command, S while in browse mode.

    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/hr

    The only time you as a developer should use role=”presentation” is if you are absolutely 100% sure the semantics of an element should be ignored. For example, if you are using a table for layout benefits only, role=”presentation” is likely okay for this.

    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/Roles/presentation_role

    If you still don’t get what I am trying to say, add style=”display: none;” to your HTML tag and then it is gone for all users. Accessibility is about delivering equal experiences and then users can decide what to do with it.

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