My advice below. Cheers, Gerard On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Ben Lau <bensan...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > Are there any (seriously) bad implications of having empty DIVs around your > HTML document? I try to avoid using them personally, but there are cases > where the visual design has forced me to add empty divs (or spans) just to > achieve the look. > Apart from adding extra weight and cluttering the document, I understand > screen readers do not pick up divs and spans?
I'm not expert about screen readers, but I did run a site I upgraded through JAWS with some interesting results. The site had alot of <p> </p> due to the CMS they were using and JAWS would translate this to/speak out "blank" which wasn't ideal. Am not sure if it would do the same for <p></p> or <div></div> or <div />. > > Would I be better off to insert these meaningless decorative tags using > javascript and modifying the DOM, while non-javascript users would see a > more cut down version of the design? Do screen readers pick up javascript > and events? Javascript solution could work, but I would run your page through a screen reader first and see if you're happy with the result. You can download demo of JAWS from http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp You'll probably identify other areas of content that could be improved for screen readers. He's a good article about the topic http://www.webaim.org/techniques/screenreader/ > > Cheers, > ben > > ******************************************************************* > List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm > Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm > Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org > ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *******************************************************************
