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Thread: headings

Number of posts in this thread: 81 (In chronological order)

From: Glenda
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 1:41PM
Subject: headings
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Hopefully this will be a question with a quick, simple answer: if a document
is over several webpages, does the heading structure follow the document or
the webpage? In other words, if the second webpage is actually a Heading 3
section, is ok the first heading on that page is a ? Not a ?

Probably didn't ask that very well. Hope it makes sense. Not looking for a
long debate here, simply a quick answer.

Thanks,
Glenda
www.eaglecom.bc.ca
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From: Karen Currier
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 1:54PM
Subject: Re: headings
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Hi Glenda

To correctly valid your web page you cannot have a appear on a web page
without a and a preceding it.

Can you explain what you're trying to achieve so that I can add more
relevant help?

All the best

Karen

From: Glenda
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 2:15PM
Subject: Re: headings
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Thanks Karen,

That pretty much answers my question.

I have this nebulous web project that I am trying to give structure. Um,
long story short, webpage one would be document title and Sections 1
and 2 , page two is Section 3 possibly with subsections -- would that be
and to be consistent within the document structure? Or and
to be valid HTML?

Cheers,
Glenda

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 2:39PM
Subject: Re: headings
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karen wrote:

> To correctly valid your web page you cannot have a appear on a web page
> without a and a preceding it.

What validation are we talking about? W3C's XHTML validator? In that
case, I'm afraid that's not correct...it will quite happily accept an
even without higher level headings before it. Of course, if it's
valid from a logic/structure point of view is another matter entirely...

--
Patrick H. Lauke
_____________________________________________________
re

From: drs18
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 2:53PM
Subject: Re: headings
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Glenda wrote:
> if a document
> is over several webpages, does the heading structure follow the
> document or
> the webpage? In other words, if the second webpage is actually a
> Heading 3
> section, is ok the first heading on that page is a ? Not a ?

Glenda, we faced a similar dilemma. I was surprised to find that what
Karen says is true and spent time arguing with our editor over proper
presentation of outlines. Given that the H3 tag accurately describes
the place of the specific page header, the H1 and H2 would be
understood on a written page, and for clarity might be written in
smaller type in parenthesis ("remember...your in the H1, H2 section by
the way").

Generating that same understanding clearly became an issue; especially
when you also consider people arriving at page three via a deep link.
Several solutions exist and to me they seem imperfect. For clarity and
validation, include the proper H1 and H2 tags on later pages, possibly
with "continued" within the tag in parenthesis. (Another option was an
explanatory "title" attribute"Continued from previous page"- but that
doesn't supply info to visual users) The headings could then be styled
to visually appear small and out of the way.

________________________________________
David Stong
Multimedia Specialist, Graphic Designer

Education Technology Services, a small unit within
Information Technology Services, at
The Pennsylvania State University
212 Rider Building II
State College, PA 16801-4819

From: Glenda
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 2:57PM
Subject: Re: headings
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I am using HTML 4.01, nothing fandangled. I was hoping for a clearcut
answer. Guess not?

Cheers,
Glenda

From: Karen Currier
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 3:00PM
Subject: Re: headings
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Do you know Patrick, I'll have to admit that I've not tried to put a
into a web page on it's own and then run it through the validators! But
from what I've understood it's best to have a followed by and so
on for each page. Even if they're just repeating headings that appeared on
another page, it helps the user understand what the is a sub-heading of
within the website (especially for users who haven't started on page 1) for
example:

Title of the website
Title of this section
Title of this page

Thanks for reminding me that validators aren't perfect :-)

All the best

Karen

From: drs18
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 3:06PM
Subject: Re: headings
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Patrick wrote
> What validation are we talking about? W3C's XHTML validator? In that
> case, I'm afraid that's not correct...it will quite happily accept an
> even without higher level headings before it. Of course, if it's
> valid from a logic/structure point of view is another matter
> entirely...

I'm far from an expert, and it seems that much is always open to
interpretation. I read the Global Structure of HTML doc at
it says, "Some
people consider skipping heading levels to be bad practice. They accept
H1 H2 H1 while they do not accept H1 H3 H1 since the heading level H2
is skipped." No further instruction is given.

In the Accessibility Guidlines at
it says:

"Since some users skim through a document by navigating its headings,
it is important to use them appropriately to convey document structure.
Users should order heading elements properly. For example, in HTML, H2
elements should follow H1 elements, H3 elements should follow H2
elements, etc. Content developers should not "skip" levels (e.g., H1
directly to H3). Do not use headings to create font effects; use style
sheets to change font styles for example."

I guess I interpret that as Karen did- and since I did, I started to
see sense in it. Which doesn't make me right, of course.

________________________________________
David Stong
Multimedia Specialist, Graphic Designer

Education Technology Services, a small unit within
Information Technology Services, at
The Pennsylvania State University
212 Rider Building II
State College, PA 16801-4819

From: Glenda
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 3:15PM
Subject: Re: headings
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ok, now I'm getting confused. If there is no yes/no answer, is there a best
practice?

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 5:57PM
Subject: Re: headings
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glenda wrote:
> ok, now I'm getting confused. If there is no yes/no answer,
> is there a best
> practice?
>

Apply semantic logic.

Look, there *is* no right and wrong, because each circumstance dictates a
unique response. A collection of web pages constituting an "article" or
other longer "paper" requires that it be "broken up", in part to address
other accessibility / usability issues. As such, it may very well be
necessary that at the "top" of one of your pages that the starting tag
may be an or even an . This in and of itself is not wrong. This
same document collection might take the pattern of:

*document break*

*document break*

....etc. There is nothing *wrong* or invalid with this as long as the
semantic structure is "correct". Which requires logic and perception, and a
healthy dose of human decision making.

I do not recall anywhere that the W3C or any other group advocates that each
page "must" include an ; by convention most of my "sections" will start
with an , but that's just me ;)

Think of it this way: when authoring Word documents, you can use the
"styles" feature (in fact you should be if you want more accessible PDF's,
but I digress). One of the advantages of doing this however is that Word
can then "auto-create" your Index/Table of Contents. When it does so, it
"styles" the entries in the ToC according to... Their semantic
structure/logic. But as you read the individual 8.5 X 11 (A4) pages, the
top of each page does not *require* the primary heading of the document,
unless of course you choose to provide it in the [Header]. This type of
semantic logic in HTML is recommended by implementing the
element; many sites also provide a visual "breadcrumb" trail further
re-enforcing the users spatial location within the document set.

Hope this helps

JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)

From: Glenda
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 6:06PM
Subject: Re: headings
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Thanks John,

That makes it VERY clear. That was the way I was leaning, and actually
started coding it that way.

Cheers,
Glenda

From: Jim Thatcher
Date: Thu, Feb 17 2005 7:31PM
Subject: Re: headings
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Is this what John said?

I think requiring a start (e.g. H1) tag on a page doesn't make sense.

From Hn it is OK to move down to H(n+1) or up to Hk for any k <= n.

Jim

Accessibility Consulting: http://jimthatcher.com/
512-306-0931

From: michael.brockington
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 3:00AM
Subject: Re: headings
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Karen,
I don't think that this is a problem with the validators - I remember this
conversation, or something similar, a few months back, and if I remember
correctly:-
The spec says that an H4 should not come before an H3, but very little else..
Whatever the intention, there is nothing that says that you must start with
an H1, or that the next level must then be an H2, rather than an H3.
In this case, I believe that consistancy is the important factor, so if a
sub-heading equates to H3 on one file because H1, H2 have already been used,
then it should equate to an H3 on a different file as well.
As a further, practical argument, what will happen if you ever offer a
'print-friendly' (or similar) version where the contents of one document,
which is normally split into several files, is then munged back together? You
don't want to have the document structure change half way through.

Mike

>

From: michael.brockington
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 3:06AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: Eoin Campbell
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 4:04AM
Subject: headings
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In my view, every webpage should have 1 and only 1 H1 element,
reserved for the title of that page.
Section headings within a page should use H2, etc.

Using headings consistently will help all readers, as they will be
styled in the same way, and will help people using screen readers,
because JAWS for example, can extract a list of all the headings in a page
and read them out, including the heading level of each one.
e.g.

Page title 1
Section title 2
2nd section title 2
Subsection title 3

Apart from accessibility issues, search engines attach more weight to
words in headings, and can also grab the heading text rather than the
element text to display in lists of hits. This is important
when you have an internal search engine. You would want an external search engine
like Google to use the title element, which might include a brief indication
of the website (e.g. XMLW - Home page), while your internal
search engine should just display the page title, using the contents of the
H1 element. Therefore consistently using H1 for the title of each page is
important to improve your search engine result presentation.

At 06:51 18/02/2005, Glenda wrote:
>Hopefully this will be a question with a quick, simple answer: if a document
>is over several webpages, does the heading structure follow the document or
>the webpage? In other words, if the second webpage is actually a Heading 3
>section, is ok the first heading on that page is a ? Not a ?
>

--
Eoin Campbell, Technical Director, XML Workshop Ltd.
10 Greenmount Industrial Estate, Harolds Cross, Dublin, Ireland.
Phone: +353 1 4547811; fax: +353 1 4496299.
Email: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ; web: www.xmlw.ie
YAWC: One-click web publishing from Word!
YAWC Pro: www.yawcpro.com
YAWC Online: www.yawconline.com

--
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From: drs18
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 4:07AM
Subject: Re: headings
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On Feb 18, 2005, at 5:05 AM, michael.brockington wrote:
> I'm afraid I find this advice contradictory, initially saying that you
> should
> use headings to 'convey structure', then saying that you must use then
> in
> strict order. In this specific case I cannot see how you can do both.

If you can not skip, starting with H3 is skipping both H1 and H2. If
you start with H3, the H1 and H2 must be implied, (assumed from another
document) or the tags are being used for style alone.

Since unlike a numbered bound print document web pages can be linked to
in any order, my logic says spelling out the implied headings on each
page is a good practice. If I was designing a print document (I often
do) that for some reason would have tabs and be accessed in a
non-linear fashion, I would include previous "implied" headings in
small type at the top of each page.

_______________________________________________
David R. Stong
Microcomputer Information Specialist (Graphic Designer),
Education Technology Services, a unit of
Teaching and Learning with Technology
Information Technology Services
The Pennsylvania State University
Phone 8148651843

212 Rider Building II
227 W Beaver Avenue
State College, PA 16801-4819

Working for Universal Design:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/accessibility
Penn State shouldn't pay for a designer's artistic indulgences; design
things that work.

Download Penn State's visual identity marks:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/drs18/mark.html

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 4:15AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>
>
> On Feb 18, 2005, at 5:05 AM, michael.brockington wrote:
>> I'm afraid I find this advice contradictory, initially saying that you
>> should
>> use headings to 'convey structure', then saying that you must use then
>> in
>> strict order. In this specific case I cannot see how you can do both.
>
>
> If you can not skip, starting with H3 is skipping both H1 and H2. If
> you start with H3, the H1 and H2 must be implied, (assumed from another
> document) or the tags are being used for style alone.
>
> Since unlike a numbered bound print document web pages can be linked to
> in any order, my logic says spelling out the implied headings on each
> page is a good practice. If I was designing a print document (I often
> do) that for some reason would have tabs and be accessed in a
> non-linear fashion, I would include previous "implied" headings in
> small type at the top of each page.

That is what LINK is for, and you can reuse it,too:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dynanav/

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: drs18
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 4:34AM
Subject: Re: headings
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On Feb 18, 2005, at 6:04 AM, lists38 wrote:

Previously I wrote
> Since ...web pages can be linked to
> in any order, my logic says spelling out the implied headings on each
> page is a good practice.
Chris replied:
> That is what LINK is for, and you can reuse it,too:
> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dynanav/

Sorry Chris- I'm an idiot. I don't understand how using the LINK in
this fashion would help understanding or accessibility. Educate me.

________________________________________
David Stong
Multimedia Specialist, Graphic Designer

Education Technology Services, a small unit within
Information Technology Services, at
The Pennsylvania State University
212 Rider Building II
State College, PA 16801-4819

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 5:23AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>
>
> On Feb 18, 2005, at 6:04 AM, lists38 wrote:
>
> Previously I wrote
>> Since ...web pages can be linked to
>> in any order, my logic says spelling out the implied headings on each
>> page is a good practice.
> Chris replied:
>> That is what LINK is for, and you can reuse it,too:
>> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dynanav/
>
>
> Sorry Chris- I'm an idiot. I don't understand how using the LINK in
> this fashion would help understanding or accessibility. Educate me.

The semantic idea of Link elements is that you connect the different pages
to the main site, which allows you to use all headlines in the current
page.

A lot of developers use the H1 as the name of the site, the h2 as the
section and so on, which is simply wrong.

If you see different pages in a site as a piece of paper, LINK information
is the staples holding them together, or in your case, the headlines you
print on each paper.

The problem with browsers like internet explorer is that they don't use
the LINK data anywhere, Opera and accessible technology actually shows
them as navigation.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: drs18
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 5:57AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Chris wrote:
> If you see different pages in a site as a piece of paper, LINK
> information
> is the staples holding them together, or in your case, the headlines
> you
> print on each paper.

I guess I need to work with it for more than just the half hour before
starting regular duties. If I use LINK, I'm not seeing how a page
beginning with an that says "Southside Streets" tells the user a
previous page also said the is "Navigating American cities" and
the is "Chicago". Including those at the top of the page, styled
if you prefer, would clearly point out the hierarchy and could include
.

_______________________________________________
David R. Stong
Microcomputer Information Specialist (Graphic Designer),
Education Technology Services, a unit of
Teaching and Learning with Technology
Information Technology Services
The Pennsylvania State University
Phone 8148651843

212 Rider Building II
227 W Beaver Avenue
State College, PA 16801-4819

Working for Universal Design:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/accessibility
Penn State shouldn't pay for a designer's artistic indulgences; design
things that work.

Download Penn State's visual identity marks:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/drs18/mark.html

From: michael.brockington
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:13AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:25AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>
> Chris wrote:
>> If you see different pages in a site as a piece of paper, LINK
>> information
>> is the staples holding them together, or in your case, the headlines
>> you
>> print on each paper.
>
> I guess I need to work with it for more than just the half hour before
> starting regular duties. If I use LINK, I'm not seeing how a page
> beginning with an that says "Southside Streets" tells the user a
> previous page also said the is "Navigating American cities" and
> the is "Chicago". Including those at the top of the page, styled
> if you prefer, would clearly point out the hierarchy and could include
> .

For this document "Southside Streets" is the main headline , and should be
the H1. "Chicago" would be the "up" document.

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/links.html#h-12.3

Your approach is much like creating breadcrumbs via headlines, and that is
just not the idea of them. What if you had a navigation with 6 levels (Ok,
your Information Architecture would be abysmal for starters)?

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: michael.brockington
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:29AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Patrick Lauke
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:34AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

> From: drs18

> If I use LINK, I'm not seeing how a page
> beginning with an that says "Southside Streets" tells the user a
> previous page also said the is "Navigating American cities" and
> the is "Chicago".

It doesn't solve the issue directly, but what it does do is provide
some context to the browser (and, if said browser exposes it in a sane
manner, to the user) saying "hey, this is part of a larger set of
related pages...here's the previous one, here's the next one, here's
the table of contents for this whole collection, etc".

The fact that IE still doesn't expose LINK information at all (heck, even
LYNX has caught on with it) makes it less than a perfect solution...in
real world application, you'll still end up having to replicate the
LINK relationships with some proper links and/or buttons, unfortunately.

Patrick
________________________________
Patrick H. Lauke
Webmaster / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk

From: Patrick Lauke
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:38AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

> From: lists38

> LINK information
> is the staples holding them together

wonderful analogy...may need to quote you on that one :)

Patrick
________________________________
Patrick H. Lauke
Webmaster / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:38AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>
>>

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:44AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

ecampbell wrote:
> In my view, every webpage should have 1 and only 1 H1 element,
> reserved for the title of that page.
> Section headings within a page should use H2, etc.

Eoin,

I would caution here just a bit. There is no actual reason *not* to have
more than 1 in a page; as I previously said, it's about structural and
semantic logic, not "style". While under most circumstances I would agree
with you, and generally follow this convention, readers should be reminded
that it is *not* a standard, nor even a published "Best Practice" (at least
officially - internal guides not-withstanding). Consider the following, in
one HTML doc:

Contact us
Blah blah blah:
foo

Web Site Policies
At this time, we run our site like a Pirate ship - it's our rules!

Of course the discussion could be held that these two disparate headings
might have their own, unique "pages" (and that wouldn't be wrong), but there
is no reason structurally or logically to not have them both on the same
"page" either - it's for the most part a design/style issue.

>
> Using headings consistently will help all readers, as they will be
> styled in the same way, and will help people using screen readers,
> because JAWS for example, can extract a list of all the
> headings in a page
> and read them out, including the heading level of each one.
> e.g.
>

Exactly. They provide structural logic to your document(s), which as you
note allows for navigation. Giving your elements unique ids as well can
further aid in structural cohesiveness, and happily also provide a built in
method for web based navigation:

Our Web Site Policies (see above)

JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)

From: drs18
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 6:52AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Chris wrote
> For this document "Southside Streets" is the main headline , and
> should be
> the H1. "Chicago" would be the "up" document.

Changing the hierarchical structure of the content makes no sense to
me. Sorry, I have to disagree.

michael.brockington wrote:
>
> But in HTML (which is what counts) you cannot just repeat a heading in
> small
> type.
> Either you repeat your H1, H2 headings, but add styling to make them
> small,
> or you give them some other semantic markup.

Yes you can repeat them in small type using style on the heading tags.
That's exactly what I'm suggesting.

________________________________________
David Stong
Multimedia Specialist, Graphic Designer

Education Technology Services, a small unit within
Information Technology Services, at
The Pennsylvania State University
212 Rider Building II
State College, PA 16801-4819

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 7:07AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: drs18
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 7:37AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

On Feb 18, 2005, at 8:56 AM, lists38 wrote:
>
> Bananas and Kiwis - Structure vs. Presentation. Applying that logic
> would
> make a a valid headline construct.

I'm missing this completely.

How equates to <div
class="headline"> is beyond me! I'll go back to the books...

_______________________________________________
David R. Stong
Microcomputer Information Specialist (Graphic Designer),
Education Technology Services, a unit of
Teaching and Learning with Technology
Information Technology Services
The Pennsylvania State University
Phone 8148651843

212 Rider Building II
227 W Beaver Avenue
State College, PA 16801-4819

Working for Universal Design:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/accessibility
Penn State shouldn't pay for a designer's artistic indulgences; design
things that work.

Download Penn State's visual identity marks:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/drs18/mark.html

From: michael.brockington
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 9:25AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: michael.brockington
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 9:32AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Karen Currier
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 9:43AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Glenda

 

I’d be interested in seeing the web project that
this topic relates to, so that I can understand more about what you’re
doing, and how headings are being applied.

 

All the best

 

Karen

www.currier.co.uk

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 9:47AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>> Headlines structure a document, not a web site.
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#h-7.5.5
>>
> Thanks for the explanation, but I'm still none the wiser.
> What is wrong with every page on a site having the site name in an H1 and
> the
> first content heading in an H2? Am I only allowed to have the site name as
> a
> logo, or in the address bar?
> I see nothing in the link above to support your argument - on an Intranet
> the site name may not be important, but on the WWW it is very important: a
> similar looking document from one site should not carry the same weight as
> one from a reputable site. For that reason the site name is the most
> important header on any page, so unless you want to put it into a banner
> image then it should be an H1, and has indeed become a de-facto standard,
> IMHO.

I cannot follow that argument at all. Isn't the content of the document
more important than the place it resides on? As your visitor, I'd think
so.

>> Furthermore, they are a navigational aid for assistive
>> technology inside the current document.
>>
> I didn't think that I was suggesting that we abuse them, rather I was
> trying
> to establish how they are/should be used.

You can use them any way you want to, but they are a tool to give the
current document a structure. When using the Site Name as the main header,
you give away one level of that structure.
You can do that, however it makes more sense to keep the structure on a
document level rather than mixing site structure and document structure.
As the whole discussion here shows, the logical way to go further would
then be to use headlines as a representation of the site structure.

company XYZ
About Us
Department XYZ

What happens when you need four levels in the document of that department?

Why is the site name the most important element? As a visitor, I don't care.
An example would be a product page, if I search for an MP3 Player with
256MB I will look for that. If that information is in the H1 of the
document I am more likely to find it. That it is a product of ABC is of no
signifance for me unless I search for that directly and use the product
search on the company web site.
As a user of assitive technology I don't want to hear the name of the site
on every page I am on as the first headline, I know already that I am
there.

The same applies to titles of documents, IMHO:

Little cuddly green frogs at etoys.com

Makes a lot more sense than

Etoys.com - all toys - plush toys - frogs

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: Glenda
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 9:56AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Thanks Karen,

Nothing online yet. Still in the early stages. Should have a piece up by
Monday to show the client -- MIGHT post that url for feedback.

Cheers,
Glenda

From: James Gagnier OFC
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 10:03AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi:

I think the basic thing to remember pertaining to headings is consistency.
users of adaptive technology don't expect every site on the net to look or
in the case of screen reader users sound the same, however, if one
particular site uses different ways of marking up each page on the same
site, that will become confusing. In other words, if one plans to use the
h1 as the site's main title, ensure that this follows through on each page.
There is nothing wrong with starting a document with h2 or even h3. If this
messes up the visual layout, changing the size of the heading in style can
resolve this problem. The issue comes down to logical structure throughout
the site not only through one page or series of pages.

In most cases, the user will learn the site's structure and quickly find the
information required using the functionality of his/her preferred screen
reading software, for example, Jaws users can quickly access the headers,
lists, links and even forms.

James

James Gagnier
Adaptive Technology Trainer and Consultant

---- Original Message -----
From: "lists38"
To: "WebAIM Discussion List"
Cc: "WebAIM Discussion List"
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 8:56 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] headings

>
>
> Chris wrote
>> For this document "Southside Streets" is the main headline , and
>> should be
>> the H1. "Chicago" would be the "up" document.
>
> Changing the hierarchical structure of the content makes no sense to
> me. Sorry, I have to disagree.

Apples and Pears. The structure of a web site is not the structure of a
web page. The structure of the site is defined in the sitemap and
replicated in the main navigation and, if wanted, LINK relationships. The
structure of the document is defined in the headlines H1 to H6 and
internal navigation to anchors.

One problem is that strictly from and XML point of view, headlines are
horrible elements as they don't encapsulate the content that is connected
to them A with a properly nested would make more sense.

> michael.brockington wrote:
>>
>> But in HTML (which is what counts) you cannot just repeat a heading in
>> small
>> type.
>> Either you repeat your H1, H2 headings, but add styling to make them
>> small,
>> or you give them some other semantic markup.
>
> Yes you can repeat them in small type using style on the heading tags.
> That's exactly what I'm suggesting.

Bananas and Kiwis - Structure vs. Presentation. Applying that logic would
make a a valid headline construct.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

From: James Gagnier OFC
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 10:03AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Karen Currier
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 10:08AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Glenda

I understand if that's a big might.

All the best

Karen
www.currier.co.uk

From: michael.brockington
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 11:19AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 2:24PM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005, karen wrote:

> from what I've understood it's best to have a followed by and so
> on for each page.

Yes, that's the general idea. It's even a requirement in ISO-HTML, the
little known real HTML standard, which is stricter than HTML 4 Strict.

The h1 element indicates level 1 heading _on the page_, and h2 indicates
level 2 heading there, implicitly dividing the page into sections. And so
on.

We could stop here, maybe saying that if you start your headings from,
say, h3 because it's a small page and h1 would be visually too big (and
you hadn't heard of CSS), it's not a mortal sin and won't harm much.
It's not really a big issue. This discussion has got much wilder than the
topic would deserve.

But it seems that there's a serious danger:

> Even if they're just repeating headings that appeared on
> another page, it helps the user understand what the is a sub-heading of
> within the website (especially for users who haven't started on page 1) for
> example:
>
> Title of the website
> Title of this section
> Title of this page

_That_ would be a big mistake. It's much better to start from
than to claim that "Title of the website" is a 1st level heading on the
page. It would look foolish on any normal graphic browser with default
settings, and CSS should not be relied upon to clear up the mess.
Moreover, any linear processing of the page (speech-based browsers,
text-only browsers, Braille, indexing robots, etc.) would encounter
"Title of the website" and "Title of this section" in the most prominent
place, marked up as very important, before you get into the real heading
for the page. This would be highly misleading. An element like
foo is a promise: this _page_ (or at least a major part thereof,
such as one half of a bilingual page) is about foo.

> Thanks for reminding me that validators aren't perfect :-)

A real validator is by definition perfect in what it does.
It's not a validator's fault that the DTD does not require
(and could not easily require) disciplined usage of headings.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Feb 18 2005 2:33PM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>>... Isn't the content of
>>the document more important than the place it resides on? As
>>your visitor, I'd think so.
>>
>>
>>
>In a word, no. If you are looking for information then you need to be able to
>judge the quality of the info. In the print world that means an article in a
>well known journal is more trustworthy than one on a two-page newsletter from
>a small pressure group.
>
>
The Sun and the Daily Mail have very many readers indeed, and are widely
known publications.
Should we replicate 1:1 what we read there or check it first by
comparing it with other publications - after all that many readers can't
all be wrong, or?
Can we determine the quality of a web site or how well run the business
is by looking at it or how known it is?
Can we determine if the facts are true and the editorial staff is up to
scratch?
If the branding of the site is the only indicator, then I very much
doubt we can.
A lot of excellent articles on the web come in a very poor wrapping and
most up-to-date technical information in personal blogs.
The new thing about the web as a media was and is that you can deliver
information without a shiny wrapper and still find readers and spur
discussion - as it is not a one way media.

>If on the other hand you are looking for a product or service, then the first
>thing that you need to know is whether the vendor is reputable enough for
>you. Is it a back-street garage, or a Ford Franchised Dealer?
>
>There may be other ways to categorise Internet use, but I'll bet that I can
>apply similar logic to them as well.
>
>In other words, as any marketing person will tell you, it is all about the
>Brand.
>
>
>
And how many marketing people have told us with their advertising words
during the dotcom boom that their site is the most reliable and best and
their brand is the world leader?
How many people got laid of at all the magazines being the best and
newest and most hip reporting about them?
Sorry, but good marketing and brand awareness as an indicator of great
content is like believing the second hand car dealer when he praises
the shiny body that the engine is in pristine condition, too.

>You can use them any way you want to, but they are a tool to
>give the current document a structure. When using the Site
>Name as the main header, you give away one level of that
>structure. You can do that, however it makes more sense to
>keep the structure on a document level rather than mixing
>site structure and document structure.
>
>
>
>Well that is exactly what this discussion is about - the author has split one
>logical document into several physical files. At that point, the site
>structure has already become part of the document structure so your point is
>moot.
>
>
No, that is not the point. The documents in themselves have an internal
structure. The site map and the information architecture of the site
binds them together. If your text does not need a proper structure, it
most probably is not worth an own document.

>>company XYZ
>>About Us
>>Department XYZ
>>
>>What happens when you need four levels in the document of
>>that department?
>>
>>
>
>You use an H4? H5, H6
>
>
>
That is three levels. How about the fourth one? There is no H7 and you
cannot restart at H1.

>>Why is the site name the most important element? As a
>>visitor, I don't care. An example would be a product page, if
>>I search for an MP3 Player with 256MB I will look for that.
>>If that information is in the H1 of the document I am more
>>likely to find it. That it is a product of ABC is of no
>>signifance for me ...
>>
>>
>
>It is for everyone else in the world, bar none.
>
>
>
A bold statement. Take CDRs for example. Any online shop will feature
about 30 different brands. When you follow the sales trail back to the
press in China there are about 4 companies left. Is Ritek the brand to
trust or Memorex who print their name on it? Is a pullover better
because of the Nike swoosh or because it is 100% cotton and the seams
are very nicely stitched?

>>... As a user of
>>assitive technology I don't want to hear the name of the site
>>on every page I am on as the first headline, I know already
>>that I am there.
>>
>>
>>
>As a sighted user, I find that most links give very little indication of what
>site they are going to - a decent indication when I get there is important.
>
>
>
That is what a usable navigation is about. The section you are in is
highlighted.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/18/limiting.lawsuits.ap/index.html
The title of the article is the h1, I don't see
Cnn.com
Politics
...

>The same applies to titles of documents, IMHO:
>
>Little cuddly green frogs at etoys.com
>
>Makes a lot more sense than
>
>Etoys.com - all toys - plush toys - frogs
>
>
>So you want us all to throw away any semantic meaning in our document titles
>then? While the first example reads more fluently, it gives no indication of
>the site structure, which you have already said you don't want to see in the
>Header structure. (Again, they are not headlines.)
>
>
Yes, why should that be in the document title? Can I navigate there?
The site structure should be presented to me as a interactive element of
the page. What good is it to know I am in the plush toys section when I
cannot navigate back up to the toys section or drill further down to the
frogs or giraffes?
The site structure is represented in the navigation - the global one and
aided by tools like a breadcrumb navigation and links to similar content.
You can repeat it, but not at the cost of internal structure of the
current document.

From: michael.brockington
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 3:40AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 3:54AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>> That is three levels. How about the fourth one? There is no
>> H7 and you
>> cannot restart at H1.
>
> The W3C defines 6 levels as being the maximum you should use in any one
> document - I can't believe that you would advocate exceeding that on this
> forum of all places? I'm sure that would cause problems for those with
> cognitive issues so I would never dream of it, I don't think I have ever
> gone
> past H4.

Who claimed I want to have an H7? When one represents the site structure
in headers, starting with H1 as the site name, h2 as the section and so on
then you will run out very soon. I used that example to show how illogical
it is to mix site and document structure.

Currently I am working on council sites, and their standards define a
certain taxonomy going down 5 levels, this would be an example where we'd
have used up all the document headers for the site structure.

>> http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/18/limiting.lawsuits.ap/index.html
>> The title of the article is the h1, I don't see Cnn.com
> Politics ...
>
> Do you own documents any way that you want, but showing me one single site
> on
> the web that does things that way does not prove that the site name in an
> H1
> causes any accessibility problems.

It may not cause any problems, but it certainly is not the idea of the
element, Jukkas mail explained that.

>> The site structure should be presented to me as a interactive element
>> of>
> the page. What good is it to know I am in the plush toys section when I>
> cannot navigate back up to the toys section or drill further down to
> the>
> frogs or giraffes?
> You said earlier that the site structure was not part of the document
> structure, and should be inferred from the navigation, have you changed
> your
> mind?

Where did I say that? I never pointed out navigation before I came here,
unless you see headers as a navigation tool. The navigation I am talking
about here are the links binding the site together, not the internal ones
in the document.

>
>> The site structure is represented in the navigation - the global one
>> and>
> aided by tools like a breadcrumb navigation and links to similar
> content.>
> You can repeat it, but not at the cost of internal structure of the
>> current document.
>
> I think you mean that you should repeat it _in order to enhance the
> semantic
> structure_ of the document.

No, you should repeat it as a shortcut for the visitor, a breadcrumb is
easier to use than drilling upward through the navigation bar. Using
headers for the site navigation cuts down on your options of page
structure.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: michael.brockington
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 5:55AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 6:30AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>> A lot of developers use the H1 as the name of the site, the
>> h2 as the section and so on, which is simply wrong.
>>
>
> On Friday you made the above statement.
> Several people have made a number of assertions in this thread, but I have
> yet to get a direct response to this one simple question, despite the
> strength of the original assertion. Jukka made a number of valid points,
> but
> while his opinions on related issues appear to agree with yours, they did
> not
> appear to me to address this point.
>
> I am not advocating that we should stipulate that the site name appears
> within an H1 heading, but can anyone give me a valid reason for not doing
> so,
> if the site owner so desires?

Let's stick to facts, please:
The statement describes a scenario where H1 is the site name, h2 the site
section *and so on*, and this is simply a wrong use of page headers,
unless your page also is the site.

Now, about the H1 on its own:

Personally, I'd rather have the topic of the _page_ as its header, not the
name of the site. Search engines agree with that. I'd be glad to hear from
real users of assistive technology if that is the case for them, too. My
guess is that when you navigate through a whole site via assistive
technology, it can be rather annoying to hear/read the name of the site
every time as the most important text element of the page.
From a branding perspective, it does make sense, and it also might help
when you end up on this page from a link in another site. The question is
if that does justify turning a page level structure element into a tool
for site structure.
A valid reason for a client would be the SEO aspect, as it is very hard to
make them care about the experience with assistive technology. Another
would be to point out the WAI guidelines:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#document-headers

"Long documents are often divided into a variety of chapters, chapters
have subtopics and subtopics are divided into various sections, sections
into paragraphs, etc. These semantic chunks of information make up the
structure of the document.

Sections should be introduced with the HTML heading elements (H1-H6).
Other markup may complement these elements to improve presentation (e.g.,
the HR element to create a horizontal dividing line), but visual
presentation is not sufficient to identify document sections."

To me, this reads as a section of the document, not of the site.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 6:30AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 6:34AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

michael.brockington wrote:
>>
>> A lot of developers use the H1 as the name of the site, the
>> h2 as the section and so on, which is simply wrong.
>>
>
> On Friday you made the above statement.
> Several people have made a number of assertions in this
> thread, but I have
> yet to get a direct response to this one simple question, despite the
> strength of the original assertion. Jukka made a number of
> valid points, but
> while his opinions on related issues appear to agree with
> yours, they did not
> appear to me to address this point.
>
> I am not advocating that we should stipulate that the site
> name appears
> within an H1 heading, but can anyone give me a valid reason
> for not doing so,
> if the site owner so desires?
>
> Mike
>

Mike,

You want to be right? Be right.

Like many issues regarding Universal Accessibility, there reaches a point
where human judgment must be invoked... We all use the example of ALT text
when we explain our missions to the uninitiated; people can understand that
ALT="picture" is pretty pointless.

There have been numerous voices on this thread that have tried to explain
why, *in their opinion* using the tag in the way you suggest may in
fact be counter-productive. They include, but may not be limited to:

* semantic logic of the document vs. site structure/navigation
* human usability (annoyance factor) of some users of Adaptive Technology
* Search Engine Optimization

....etc.

Can somebody point to a "rule" that says don't do this? Not that I am aware
of - it does not exist as far as I know (although it *may* in fact be part
of internal authoring guides). You want the technical win? You got it. You
don't want to listen to the other voices - fair enough, everyone is entitled
to an opinion.

Might I suggest however that this thread has reach a point where it is now
going 'round 'n 'round... Let's leave it shall we?

Cheers!

JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)

From: michael.brockington
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 7:30AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 8:03AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, michael.brockington wrote:

> > A lot of developers use the H1 as the name of the site, the
> > h2 as the section and so on, which is simply wrong.
>
> On Friday you made the above statement.
> Several people have made a number of assertions in this thread, but I have
> yet to get a direct response to this one simple question,

Which simple question? I see no question. If you mean the question whether
it is correct (from the accessibility perspective, I presume) to use h1 as
the name of the site (irrespectively of the page's content), then the
above statement is a very direct answer to it. If you mean arguments in
favor of that answer, several arguments have been given.

> Jukka made a number of valid points, but
> while his opinions on related issues appear to agree with yours, they did not
> appear to me to address this point.

I cannot see what "this point" means here.

From some other postings in this discussion, I guess you might be looking
for an explicit statement in WAI guidelines against using h1 as site name.
I think the points already made have contained a reference to the
guideline that tells authors to use logical markup according to
specifications. If you want something even more explicit, you are asking
for too much. Besides, we should aim at making pages accessible to people,
not at complying with accessibility principles.

The simple fact that h1 will be presented, by default (and we can never be
sure of being able to override the defaults) in a very prominent manner,
such as slow voice and considerable pause after (or very large font and a
bottom margin), should deter us from using it for anything else than a
first-level heading that describes the _page_ and therefore deserves such
presentation.

--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

From: michael.brockington
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 8:26AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 8:38AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

michael.brockington wrote:

> Conversely, if the site name is not a header, does AT have
> any standardised
> way of advising the user on what site they are currently?

Uhmm... What about ? Puleezz.....

Perhaps spending some time with AT instead of making assumptions about it
would benefit all developers on this list? At the very least, perhaps some
"real world" testing would be appropriate?

JF

From: KNOCK Alistair
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 9:31AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Greetings,

"Authors should use the TITLE element to identify the contents of a
document. Since users often consult documents out of context, authors
should provide context-rich titles. Thus, instead of a title such as
"Introduction", which doesn't provide much contextual background,
authors should supply a title such as "Introduction to Medieval
Bee-Keeping" instead."

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#h-7.4.2

*Document*.

The W3C are fortunate in that, after reading a sentence or two of any
document on their site, it quickly becomes apparent where you are, as
you get that sinking feeling once again.

My thoughts:

The index/home page of a site will usually have a h1 that details the
name of the website. This is because the index/home page usually does
nothing other than act as a splash screen with an introduction nobody
reads and links which everyone hurriedly pursues.

On other pages, the h1 should not be the name of the website, it should
be the overall heading of the page. This probably means it's the same
as what's in title, and that's OK with me, because I don't want to be
bookmarking 10 links on a site and find that they show up in my
favourites as all beginning with "The World Wide Web Consortium:
Introduction / SubIntroduction /" and finally get to the juicy bit.
That's not helpful to any user.

If you are browsing using headings and came to this page from the index,
everything's smashing. You know what website you're on, and you know
how the document is structured.

If you are browsing using headings and came to this page from elsewhere,
you'll either have some idea where you are because you "clicked" on a
link and presumably didn't do this merely out of spite, and also because
thoughtful developers will have provided a Home link which you can use
to orientate yourself again.

If you are browsing visually and came to this page from the index, it's
all cool too.

If you are browsing visually and came to this page from elsewhere, this
is where it might be useful to incorporate some non-heading based
branding somewhere on the screen.

BUT! What if you have a user using a text-based browser who has
disabled hyperlinking and images?!

(answer: look at the URL..)

Finally, this is my opinion, and this question isn't answerable purely
because the web allows for such diversity in content. The W3C actually
DO produce documents, rather than pages, which they then split up into
chapters. They're one of the few examples of this kind of content
production on the web - there are many, many different ways of
organising content and providing navigation. It's about
context-specific decisions, and you as a web developer deciding what's
best for each situation. That's what separates the good guys from
FrontPage 2000.

(finally for real: navigation isn't part of content. It should be
separated and I'm hoping it will be properly in future. Content is why
you come to a page; navigation is what you do after that.)

Happy Mondays,
Alistair

>

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Mon, Feb 21 2005 10:19AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

> My thoughts:
>
> The index/home page of a site will usually have a h1 that details the
> name of the website. This is because the index/home page usually does
> nothing other than act as a splash screen with an introduction nobody
> reads and links which everyone hurriedly pursues.

Many usability people will disagree with you there. A home page that is
nothing but a splash page is bad. But for our problem, you are right.

> BUT! What if you have a user using a text-based browser who has
> disabled hyperlinking and images?!

What good would that be? I don't know any browser that has hyperlinking
disabled, after all links was the new thing to make the web an interactive
interlinked media. The only way to turn off links is to make them
dependent on scripting. I couldn't think of any reason why a user would
want to turn off links - or how to do that.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: michael.brockington
Date: Tue, Feb 22 2005 3:49AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Tim Beadle
Date: Tue, Feb 22 2005 4:06AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

"michael.brockington" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote on 22/02/2005 10:49:45:
> I generally find that being offensive to people that one is trying
to educate
> is a bad thing.

I generally find that people who insist on being right
and on having the last word are no better. You weren't exactly in the kind
of mood to be instructed or taught.

> I thought that the purpose of this list was to help clarify any ambiguities
> in the various accessibility recommendations, and to help people to
arrive at
> mutually acceptable solutions, however if it is just a place for people
to
> pass their opinions off as fact without ever bothering to understand
the
> complexities of the situation then there is no point in any developer
being
> on this list.

(Pram)-->toys

Tim

Institute of Physics
Registered charity No. 293851
76 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT, England

IOP Publishing Limited
Registered in England under Registration No 467514.
Registered Office: Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE England

This e-mail message has been checked for the presence of computer viruses.

From: Bob Easton
Date: Sun, Feb 27 2005 5:31PM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

ecampbell wrote:
> In my view, every webpage should have 1 and only 1 H1 element,
> reserved for the title of that page.
> Section headings within a page should use H2, etc.
>
> Using headings consistently will help all readers, as they will be
> styled in the same way, and will help people using screen readers,
> because JAWS for example, can extract a list of all the headings in a page
> and read them out, including the heading level of each one.
....

Also pertinent to this discussion is Molly's new article about semantics:

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=369225

--
Bob Easton

From: mroush
Date: Wed, Mar 16 2005 10:03AM
Subject: RE
← Previous message | Next message →

To: WebAIM Discussion List
MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

User-Agent: NuralNet WebMail Client

:----- Original Message -----

:

:There is a new version of the Mozilla accessibility extension

:available:

:

:Correct download link:

:http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/software/mozilla

Is this only for the Windows version of Mozilla? Are versions for other platforms available or planned?

Michael Roush

From: lists38
Date: Thu, Mar 31 2005 1:09PM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 2:27AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 3:58AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

I have no idea why that email keeps popping up here, I sent that out once
ages ago. Is the mailinglist acting up? I just checked my mail server, it
isn't me.

>>
>>
>> Chris wrote
>>> For this document "Southside Streets" is the main headline , and
>>> should be
>>> the H1. "Chicago" would be the "up" document.
>>
>> Changing the hierarchical structure of the content makes no sense to
>> me. Sorry, I have to disagree.
>
> Apples and Pears. The structure of a web site is not the structure of a
> web page. The structure of the site is defined in the sitemap and
> replicated in the main navigation and, if wanted, LINK relationships. The
> structure of the document is defined in the headlines H1 to H6 and
> internal navigation to anchors.
>
> One problem is that strictly from and XML point of view, headlines are
> horrible elements as they don't encapsulate the content that is connected
> to them A with a properly nested would make more sense.
>
>> michael.brockington wrote:
>>>
>>> But in HTML (which is what counts) you cannot just repeat a heading in
>>> small
>>> type.
>>> Either you repeat your H1, H2 headings, but add styling to make them
>>> small,
>>> or you give them some other semantic markup.
>>
>> Yes you can repeat them in small type using style on the heading tags.
>> That's exactly what I'm suggesting.
>
> Bananas and Kiwis - Structure vs. Presentation. Applying that logic would
> make a a valid headline construct.
>
> --
> Chris Heilmann
> Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
> Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
> Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 6:23AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 7:59AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 8:20AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 7:59AM
Subject: RE
← Previous message | Next message →

dagda1 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for all the replies and I do hate to ask further
> questions, but I'm
> trying to put a case to a client as to what our educated
> approach is to
> streaming our multimedia.
>
> I'm going with the approach that we use .mpeg for video and
> mp3 or avi for
> audio.
>

Paul,

Recently, we went through an exercise with a client who had an eLearning
course. One of the tasks in the course was to determine which media players
were installed on the end users machine (and how to download and install if
one was missing - it was a beginners course). There are a few issues to
deal with here, including whether or not there is a requirement for SMIL
(captioned) video - how WCAG compliant must you be?

Issues are:
* Many of the current crop of players support multiple codecs... In fact,
upon installation many will attempt to "hijack" non-native formats that they
are capable of playing. WinAmp for one will try to be the default player
for many different encodings (and does a decent job too), RealPlayer
attempts this as well, and I believe that Windows Media Player will also
attempt to "assume" other file formats. QuickTime less so... (these are the
ones I tested... Remember, there are a slew of other third-party media
players out there). So one of the issues is, we/you cannot "assume" that
any given media player is installed let alone configured as the default
player for a media type, making "embedding" something of an issue (if that
is a requirement)

* SMIL support. Yeesh! SMIL is one of those W3C technologies that is
neither well supported, nor supported in a standard way (which, by it's
reading it doesn't really have to be, but it sure makes it tough on us
developers). RealMedia and QuickTime are the better players in this arena,
but of course SMIL for QuickTime will not play in the RealPlayer, and SMIL
for Real won't play in the QT player... Figures eh? WMP is the worst here,
as it currently does not support the captioning feature-set of SMIL; Windows
SMIL (or SAMI - essentially the same, but different...) appears to be used
primarily as a means to create a playlist, where the SMIL file references
multiple media files and plays them in a predetermined order.

* True Streaming .vs Pseudo Streaming. Are you planning on using the HTTP
protocol, or another, "truer" streaming protocol? Higher overhead for the
client, better results for the user, especially if the media files are
larger video files. Not all formats can be truly "streamed"...

* "Embed-ability": As mentioned above, since many different players will
attempt to play the more popular formats, you might have issues if you need
to embed the media files directly into your pages. Nowhere is this more
true than with MP3 files - arguably the most common audio file format on the
web today (sorry, no hard stats on hand, but given the explosion of stand
alone MP3 players, and the whole peer-to-peer underground file exchange
phenom...). So, if all you want to do is provide an audio download, then
MP3 is certainly your safest bet. However, if you need to "embed" the audio
within a page, avoid MP3 (not even sure if you *can* embed MP3s) because you
just can't be sure what player the end user has configured for MP3s, and
many, if not most of the third part players do not have web plugins; they
launch the player external of the web-page (ie: WinAmp - which is *my*
favorite/default MP3 player)

* DRM - Digital Rights Management. Some content providers have a desire /
requirement to block end users from the ability to locally save the media
file. While there is no 100% fool proof method of stopping a truly
determined user, there are ways of making it much harder; Microsoft have
also done a fair bit of work in the DRM field, and the major players in the
entertainment industry are working hard in this area too. But for the
average small to medium web dev shop, much of this is probably outside their
regular domain. Personally, I have used RealMedia in the past for a client,
as it does have rudimentary means of stopping local file saving... Haven't
dabbled in a while, but as I recall it wasn't too hard. Contact me off list
for more recollections...

So, what's an average punter to do? Well, believe it or not, after spending
a fair bit of time on this myself, I believe the actual answer is.... Flash.
Yep, Flash.

Now there are some caveats here, but the reasons are as follows:

- user base. According to macromedia, they have a 98.2% installed
user base (http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/)
*AND* it is available for multiple platforms (unlike, say, Windows Media
Player)
- supports audio only / audio and video / video only (uses MP3
compression for the audio to reduce file size)
- embeddable (with independent user controls - another WCAG
requirement)
- supports captioning for video (requires a third party application,
I believe there are a few: I have used the HiSoftware tool with success -
http://www.hisoftware.com/hmccflash/index.html)

The single largest downside I encountered was degradation in quality of
video (which is due, in part to the number of frames-per-second, as well as
compression algorithms in Flash which seem to concede quality for file
size). Also, to create a Flash movie from live action content requires that
you import the original source material into Flash - in other words it is a
multi-step process. Depending on your source of video, it may be a many
multi-step process. Acceptable import file types are (for video): .avi,
..mov, .mpg/mpeg, .asf/.wmv; (for audio): .wav, .mp3, .aif, .au, ..asf/.wmv

Also, for the captioning component, you must have Flash MX 2004 for
development, plus the aforementioned helper app.

Hope this helps. More than this Paul, and I send out a consulting invoice
(which I do BTW ).

JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)

>
> What I want is a break down of which:
>
> 1. Format does not work in which version of each player.
> 2. Can I get world wide stats of the percentage of player
> is being used
>
>
> Thanks again for your valuable assistance
>
> Paul
>
>

From: John Foliot - WATS.ca
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 8:20AM
Subject: RE
← Previous message | Next message →

dagda1 wrote:
>
> I'm going with the approach that we use .mpeg for video and
> mp3 or avi for
> audio.
Paul,

Recently, we went through an exercise with a client who had an eLearning
course. One of the tasks in the course was to determine which media players
were installed on the end users machine (and how to download and install if
one was missing - it was a beginners course). There are a few issues to
deal with here, including whether or not there is a requirement for SMIL
(captioned) video - how WCAG compliant must you be?

Issues are:
* Many of the current crop of players support multiple codecs... In fact,
upon installation many will attempt to "hijack" non-native formats that they
are capable of playing. WinAmp for one will try to be the default player
for many different encodings (and does a decent job too), RealPlayer
attempts this as well, and I believe that Windows Media Player will also
attempt to "assume" other file formats. QuickTime less so... (these are the
ones I tested... Remember, there are a slew of other third-party media
players out there). So one of the issues is, we/you cannot "assume" that
any given media player is installed let alone configured as the default
player for a media type, making "embedding" something of an issue (if that
is a requirement)

* SMIL support. Yeesh! SMIL is one of those W3C technologies that is
neither well supported, nor supported in a standard way (which, by it's
reading it doesn't really have to be, but it sure makes it tough on us
developers). RealMedia and QuickTime are the better players in this arena,
but of course SMIL for QuickTime will not play in the RealPlayer, and SMIL
for Real won't play in the QT player... Figures eh? WMP is the worst here,
as it currently does not support the captioning feature-set of SMIL; Windows
SMIL (or SAMI - essentially the same, but different...) appears to be used
primarily as a means to create a playlist, where the SMIL file references
multiple media files and plays them in a predetermined order.

* True Streaming .vs Pseudo Streaming. Are you planning on using the HTTP
protocol, or another, "truer" streaming protocol? Higher overhead for the
client, better results for the user, especially if the media files are
larger video files. Not all formats can be truly "streamed"...

* "Embed-ability": As mentioned above, since many different players will
attempt to play the more popular formats, you might have issues if you need
to embed the media files directly into your pages. Nowhere is this more
true than with MP3 files - arguably the most common audio file format on the
web today (sorry, no hard stats on hand, but given the explosion of stand
alone MP3 players, and the whole peer-to-peer underground file exchange
phenom...). So, if all you want to do is provide an audio download, then
MP3 is certainly your safest bet. However, if you need to "embed" the audio
within a page, avoid MP3 (not even sure if you *can* embed MP3s) because you
just can't be sure what player the end user has configured for MP3s, and
many, if not most of the third part players do not have web plugins; they
launch the player external of the web-page (ie: WinAmp - which is *my*
favorite/default MP3 player)

* DRM - Digital Rights Management. Some content providers have a desire /
requirement to block end users from the ability to locally save the media
file. While there is no 100% fool proof method of stopping a truly
determined user, there are ways of making it much harder; Microsoft have
also done a fair bit of work in the DRM field, and the major players in the
entertainment industry are working hard in this area too. But for the
average small to medium web dev shop, much of this is probably outside their
regular domain. Personally, I have used RealMedia in the past for a client,
as it does have rudimentary means of stopping local file saving... Haven't
dabbled in a while, but as I recall it wasn't too hard. Contact me off list
for more recollections...

So, what's an average punter to do? Well, believe it or not, after spending
a fair bit of time on this myself, I believe the actual answer is.... Flash.
Yep, Flash.

Now there are some caveats here, but the reasons are as follows:

- user base. According to macromedia, they have a 98.2% installed
user base (http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/)
*AND* it is available for multiple platforms (unlike, say, Windows Media
Player)
- supports audio only / audio and video / video only (uses MP3
compression for the audio to reduce file size)
- embeddable (with independent user controls - another WCAG
requirement)
- supports captioning for video (requires a third party application,
I believe there are a few: I have used the HiSoftware tool with success -
http://www.hisoftware.com/hmccflash/index.html)

The single largest downside I encountered was degradation in quality of
video (which is due, in part to the number of frames-per-second, as well as
compression algorithms in Flash which seem to concede quality for file
size). Also, to create a Flash movie from live action content requires that
you import the original source material into Flash - in other words it is a
multi-step process. Depending on your source of video, it may be a many
multi-step process. Acceptable import file types are (for video): .avi,
..mov, .mpg/mpeg, .asf/.wmv; (for audio): .wav, .mp3, .aif, .au, ..asf/.wmv

Also, for the captioning component, you must have Flash MX 2004 for
development, plus the aforementioned helper app.

Hope this helps. More than this Paul, and I send out a consulting invoice
(which I do BTW ).

JF
--
John Foliot = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca
Web Accessibility Testing and Services
http://www.wats.ca 1.866.932.4878 (North America)
>
> What I want is a break down of which:
>
> 1. Format does not work in which version of each player.
> 2. Can I get world wide stats of the percentage of player
> is being used
>
>
> Thanks again for your valuable assistance
>
> Paul
>

From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 8:38AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

>
>
> Chris wrote
>> For this document "Southside Streets" is the main headline , and
>> should be
>> the H1. "Chicago" would be the "up" document.
>
> Changing the hierarchical structure of the content makes no sense to
> me. Sorry, I have to disagree.

Apples and Pears. The structure of a web site is not the structure of a
web page. The structure of the site is defined in the sitemap and
replicated in the main navigation and, if wanted, LINK relationships. The
structure of the document is defined in the headlines H1 to H6 and
internal navigation to anchors.

One problem is that strictly from and XML point of view, headlines are
horrible elements as they don't encapsulate the content that is connected
to them A with a properly nested would make more sense.

> michael.brockington wrote:
>>
>> But in HTML (which is what counts) you cannot just repeat a heading in
>> small
>> type.
>> Either you repeat your H1, H2 headings, but add styling to make them
>> small,
>> or you give them some other semantic markup.
>
> Yes you can repeat them in small type using style on the heading tags.
> That's exactly what I'm suggesting.

Bananas and Kiwis - Structure vs. Presentation. Applying that logic would
make a a valid headline construct.

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 8:41AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Hello ADMIN!

Is this stuck in a loop or what is going on?

>>
>> Chris wrote
>>> For this document "Southside Streets" is the main headline , and
>>> should be
>>> the H1. "Chicago" would be the "up" document.
>>
>> Changing the hierarchical structure of the content makes no sense to
>> me. Sorry, I have to disagree.
>
> Apples and Pears. The structure of a web site is not the structure of a
> web page. The structure of the site is defined in the sitemap and
> replicated in the main navigation and, if wanted, LINK relationships. The
> structure of the document is defined in the headlines H1 to H6 and
> internal navigation to anchors.
>
> One problem is that strictly from and XML point of view, headlines are
> horrible elements as they don't encapsulate the content that is connected
> to them A with a properly nested would make more sense.
>
>> michael.brockington wrote:
>>>
>>> But in HTML (which is what counts) you cannot just repeat a heading in
>>> small
>>> type.
>>> Either you repeat your H1, H2 headings, but add styling to make them
>>> small,
>>> or you give them some other semantic markup.
>>
>> Yes you can repeat them in small type using style on the heading tags.
>> That's exactly what I'm suggesting.
>
> Bananas and Kiwis - Structure vs. Presentation. Applying that logic would
> make a a valid headline construct.
>
> --
> Chris Heilmann
> Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
> Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
> Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
>

--
Chris Heilmann
Blog: http://www.wait-till-i.com
Writing: http://icant.co.uk/
Binaries: http://www.onlinetools.org/

From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 8:50AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 9:27AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 9:33AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 10:04AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: lists38
Date: Fri, Apr 01 2005 11:14AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: lists38
Date: Mon, Apr 04 2005 1:13AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: lists38
Date: Mon, Apr 04 2005 1:32AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: lists38
Date: Mon, Apr 04 2005 6:52AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: lists38
Date: Mon, Apr 04 2005 7:13AM
Subject: Re: headings
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From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Mon, Apr 04 2005 7:13AM
Subject: Re: headings
← Previous message | Next message →

Again, it is not me and for some reason nothing happened all weekend...

I have half a mind of unsubscribing, as maintenance emails don't seem to
get answered.

From: lists38
Date: Mon, Apr 04 2005 7:21AM
Subject: Re: headings
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