Show current location inside navigation bars
G128 asks a navigation bar to say which of its items you are on, so a reader can tell where they have landed without reverse-engineering it from the content. W3C accepts several ways of doing that. Add an icon, add text, or change the state of the item. It is most useful where the pages are ordered steps in a task. W3C lists this as a sufficient technique for 2.4.8 Location, a Level AAA rule, so it is an orientation improvement rather than a Level AA obligation. One piece of the usual advice is not W3C's. The technique predates aria-current and describes visual and structural marking instead. Marking the current item with aria-current is still the right way to build it today, because it tells a screen reader what the styling tells everyone else, but that recommendation is ours rather than the technique's.
How we find it in an audit
Our reviewers walk the site with a screen reader and check, page by page, whether the navigation says where they are and whether that reaches assistive technology as well as the eye. Styling alone is the common half-fix, so we look for a state that is exposed rather than only painted. Where the current item is marked by color and nothing else, that is a 1.4.1 finding as well as this one.
How affected users experience it
Screen reader users often reach a page by search or a direct link, with no memory of a path that would tell them where they are. Hearing the navigation list with no item marked leaves them to guess, and guessing wrong inside a multi-step application means redoing work. Somebody with a cognitive disability on the same seven-step form needs the same answer for the same reason. How much is left.
Passes vs. fails
Passes
The current item is styled distinctly, by more than color alone, and carries aria-current="page", so the location is both visible and announced.
Fails
The navigation bar renders identically on every page, with nothing marking which section the reader is currently in.
Other ways to satisfy this rule
7 guides on this site are filed under 2.4.8 Location. W3C lists this one as sufficient for that rule on its own. Implement it correctly, in a way your readers' software actually supports, and the rule is met.
- ARIA26sufficientMark the current page with aria-current
- G63sufficientOffer a site map as another route
- G65sufficientShow a breadcrumb trail on deep pages
- G127sufficientShow each page's place in its collection
- PDF14advisoryAdd running headers and footers to long PDFs
- PDF17advisoryMake PDF page numbers match the printed pages
This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique G128: Indicating current location within navigation bars. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.