WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: A list of one?

for

From: Michael D. Roush
Date: Nov 19, 2008 2:15PM

Dean Hamack wrote:
> On 11/19/08 12:36 PM, "Michael D. Roush" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> It strikes me that what you are using as third-level headers are
>> probably a list of items as well (with the names of new employees as a
>> sub-list).
>
> First of all Michael, welcome to the list (I've been on another list with
> Michael for years).

I've been lurking on this list for quite a while... rarely say anything
though. Nice to see your name pop up here. Dean is truly one of the
most talented designers I've never met! :)

>> I also had a thought that maybe these really aren't lending themselves
>> to headers and lists, but a set of definition terms and definitions.
>> The office is the definition term, and the new employee (or the list of
>> employees) is the content of the definition tag.
>
> I disagree. The w3c give the following example for a DL:
>
> <DL>
> <DT>Dweeb
> <DD>young excitable person who may mature
> into a <EM>Nerd</EM> or <EM>Geek</EM>
> </DL>
>
> A person's name is not a definition of the term "employee", and you can't
> have multiple definitions for a single term.

However, I would suggest that (semantically) a person's name is an
appropriate definition for an office name when it appears under the
heading "New Employees".

I'm not suggesting multiple dd tags, but an unordered list inside the dd
tag when more than one new employee exists. The list is the definition
(much like a list of possible definitions is the "definition" of a term
in the dictionary).

Something like...

<h3>New Employees</h3>
<dl>
<dt>Human Resources</dt>
<dd>John Smith</dd>
<dt>Maintenance</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>Joe Public</li>
<li>Mary Jones</li>
</ul>
</dd>
</dl>


This way, every definition term is semantically associated with the
heading "New Employees". The definition of each term (which should be
understood as "New Employees, Human Resources", etc.) is either the
single name or the list of names, as appropriate.

A simple bit of css and they appear the same to the eye whether they are
a single name or a list of names.

(I should backpedal a little bit here and say that I'm not sure I see
any real issue with making a one-item list. What I'm suggesting here is
simply what I think makes the most structural sense given the example.)

Michael