A custom landmark which appears prominently at the top of the page.
Screenshot of page notice requiring users attention.
Introduction
User notification which appears prominently at the top of the page, above the main content.
In order of priority, from high to low, a page notice is classified as either:
attention
confirmation
information
Page-notices may be rendered server-side and visible at page load time or, in a single page app environment, they might instead be triggered on the client after some user action.
A page notice must appear above the main page content, and above the fold if possible.
A page must have only one page notice visible at any time.
Page notice must not rely on colour alone to convey meaning or tone.
Page notice should use an icon to further assist conveying meaning & tone.
Page notice may optionally contain a button to dismiss and hide the notice.
Page notice may optionally contain any number of call to action links or buttons.
Interaction Design
Keyboard
An attention notice must receive keyboard focus if rendered on the server. In some cases we do this for client-side rendered notices too (e.g. if the notice contains a call to action link or button).
Screen Reader
Critical error notices must be announced on page load (achieved via focus management).
All client-side changes must be announced (achieved via live-region for non critical notices).
Page notice must be available in screen reader list of regions or landmarks.
Developer Guide
A page notice has 4 key pieces of content: icon, heading, copy and call to action link or button (optional).
Landmark Region
To aid discoverability of such important content for assistive technology, we make the page notice a landmark, using the <section> tag and region role.
Low priority notices such as confirmation and information should never receive keyboard focus.
All high-priority page notices rendered on the server should receive keyboard focus.
Some high-priority notices rendered on the client should receive keyboard focus. Typically these are notices that contain an interactive call to action that helps resolve the issue.