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Re: markup for a Q & A list (kind of was Navigation listsand headers)

for

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Aug 28, 2007 9:40AM

Keith Parks wrote:
> On Aug 28, 2007, at 6:58 AM, Philip Kiff wrote:
>
>> Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
>>> <h2 id="q-foo">The question?</h2>
>>> <div class="ans">
>>> <p>The first paragraph of the answer.</p>
>>> <p>The first paragraph of the answer.</p>
>>> <p>Etc., optionally with images, tables, etc. as needed.</p>
>>> </div>
>
> THis seems to presume that the question will be shorter than the
> answer. I had thought of using a header of some level for the
> question, but when the question is long (potentially more than one
> sentence), it somehow did not seem correct. A specific example...

Mmmm...I see what you mean. I suppose that *very* long headings may
themselves start to get in the way of other kinds of
accessibility/usability, since they would disrupt the possibility of getting
a quick overview of a page by listening to all the headings (unless the user
actively interrupts the reading of long questions). Note however that the
use of heading elements makes the page more readable and scannable visually
with styles disabled (cell phone, text browsers, etc), even when the
headings are the length of paragraphs.

What was your original option? Simply using paragraphs? I don't think
there is any technical limit placed on the length of a heading, but it does
seem that at the level of semantic meaning, the longer the question, the
less it is acting like a heading, and the more it starts to act like a
paragraph. So while the use of headings makes sense, perhaps individual
cases may work better as paragraphs only.


> Q: Can we bring grandparents and family friends to Family Weekend
> events that include food, without having to pay to register them, if
> they don't eat anything?
>
> A: Yes.
>
> Grammatically, both of those would constitute paragraphs, right?

Yes.

Phil.