Dang, we certainly don't want to go to sleep these days. I wake up and am caught in a mire.
Instead of writing several emails, I'm going to try and cover everyone's issues here. I hope I don't miss anything or get people confused. Drew, thank you for the kind words. I will agree the commentary about "some people" should have remained out of the standards. You will notice a major difference with the forth coming standards. There should not be any more garbage editorials except in the internal notes. Internal notes as you are probably aware are open to the public as well. Many people will use headings as a means to help elevate their pages in the search engines. Technically there is no problems with that. The only time problems will arise is when they say they are using headings to classify sections of their page when, in fact, is it more obvious that the heading is used as a font declaration. Using the book analogy is the easiest way to explain how headings should be used. Sure there are books that include the book or chapter title on some or all of the pages within a chapter. However, that is extremely rare. It does appear to be a publishers choice - not an author's choice. With four books in my immediate reach, three have the book title on the left page and the chapter title on the right page. So, to take the position that a web page should have the web site name on every page would be incorrect. >From a search engine standpoint any form of hidden text is considered spamming. That includes, but not limited to, negative positioning, placing text behind images or even setting visibility or display to one of the many methods of hiding. >From a usability, accessibility and SEO point of view never put your site name in your page title. You have other places you can use that. For instance, you can use your first ALT attribute, typically your logo, to identify your site or company name. That uses the screen reader to it's advantage and identifies to the non-visual or low vision visitor what site they are on. The visual users never need it because they can obviously see your logo. So, using an H1 in that location would be incorrect. The first H1 should mimic or mirror the page title ... maybe not entirely. That reinforces the page title for the search engines. And, best of all it gives the screen reader user an understanding of the overall page topic. There have been times where I changed the H1 from the page title to a more descriptive heading. Yes, some screen readers have the capability of grouping all links together regardless of position on the page. And, yes, some do allow navigation based upon headings. Unfortunately, they don't all do that. Therefore, taking the position that you should design your page based upon those capabilities is errant. Skip navigation can be hidden from view or can be placed in view near at the top of the page. Unfortunately, that would then be the first thing the search engines see. Nothing really wrong with that at all. The H1 essentially identifies the beginning of the content. So, some and I won't say which ones, search engines ignore everything prior to that. Ouch! This does not lead to your pages being ignored if you do not include heading tags. But, the proper use of heading tags will help your site perform much better. And, for the screen readers that do use headings to navigate that can get visitors to the main content much faster. As for heading font sizes, I couldn't read an H6 even if I tried. I would have to increase the font sizes using my browser. So, for those that think heading tag font sizes can't be changed you can safely ignore those promptings. CSS was given to us for a reason. That reason is easy to understand. Make your pages look and perform as you would like them to appear and act. Search engines cannot penalize you for using the standards correctly. In fact, I've seen the opposite. When using the standards correctly some search engines give you points. MSN specifically states you should follow the standards. The only bad thing is Microsoft has a way of creating their own standards and expecting everyone to follow their lead. Before I declare the codes below errant, I would like to see the presentation. Skip navigation is much better than depending upon everyone in the world using JAWS. Following the Standards: Which standards should we follow? Everyone seems to think we should follow Strict. Personally, strict causes too many problems in my opinion. It doesn't allow me to do my pages as I prefer and as I know work best. Then we have ISO, RFC, IETF and other standards. Each declares something different. Each requires doing things their way. But, the one that that is consistent is they all support W3C standards. When I teach and someone asks how they should do something I ask them to check all the sources. The information will be there. If it comes down to an interpretation I let them interpret. I can give my opinion, but then they would learn my way of doing things and not learn from their mistakes. So, if you have intentions to learn how to use the standards correctly, I would recommend you read all applicable standards. In the case of HTML I would recommend you read the ISO standards as well. The W3C standards are general guidelines like there are general laws. Then the ISO gets more specific because of their organizational rules. We can compare the W3C to each State having a law that there will be a general speed limit on all unmarked roads. Then we can look at the ISO as roads posted with a 55 miles per hour speed limit being a specific requirement. I hope this helps. My apologies for being so long. Sincerely, Lee Roberts http://www.roserockdesign.com http://www.applepiecart.com -----Original Message----- From: Mike Foskett [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 8:55 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [WSG]headers Drew, Mike, So, if I get this right then technically speaking: <title>Page name - Site name</title> <div>Site name</div> [not visible & 2nd part of the <title> - Placed behind an image of the same] <h1>Content (Page name) heading</h1> [visible & 1st part of the <title>] <h2></h2> [repeat as required keeping all sub headings in the correct order] <h3></h3> <h2></h2> <h3></h3> <h4></h4> <h3></h3> <h2></h2> <div> <span>Navigation</span> [not visible, <span> is of no use to no-vision, but okay for lo-vision, users] [list of links] </div> <div> <span>External links</span> [not visible] <h2>link heading</h2> [this heading has to be a h2 because you cannot guarantee a h2 in the content] [text & link] <h2>link heading</h2> [text & link] </div> <div> <span>Footer links</span> [not visible] [list of links] </div> Note: [not visible] means you cannot see it but neither "visibility:hidden" nor "display:none" are used. Hmm. I have observed vision-impaired users skipping through <h?> tags as the preferred method of navigating a page. The tendency is not to use the access keys even though they happily know they are there. This is due I believe to inconsistencies in the declarations, and availability, on pages world-wide. My concern is now that by removing the <h?> tags from the navigation sections, I'm actually making the page a lot less accessible. For the best compromise while keeping it all accessible, I'm now considering: <title>Page name - Site name</title> <div>Site name</div> [not visible & 2nd part of the <title> - Placed behind an image of the same] <h1>Content (Page name) heading</h1> [visible & 1st part of the <title>] <h2></h2> [repeat as required, keeping all sub headings in the correct order] <h3></h3> <h2></h2> <h3></h3> <h4></h4> <h3></h3> <h2></h2> <h2>Navigation</h2> [not visible, <h2> is good for both no-vision and lo-vision users] [list of links] <h3>External links</h3> [not visible] <h4>link heading</h4> [text & link] <h4>link heading</h4> [text & link] <h3>Footer links</h3> [not visible] [list of links] Would that be in my best interest and a good balance? mike 2k:)2 ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. 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