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Heading-itus

for

From: steven
Date: May 18, 2011 10:03AM

Having read John's reply to Angela's "headings for links list" thread, I wondered if I am myself beginning to suffer the accessibility equivalent of div-itus; heading-itus.

For example, I have been placing a 'Page options' heading prior to page functions such as 'top of page' and 'print page' so as to allow people to be aware that there is structural unity in the document, extended by taking a prominent source code position just below the main page content rather than placed willy-nilly in the document, such as in the footer. The logic to me, is that footer and menus are not why most people access a page when it is returned from a search query - that is just the consequence of how pages provide navigation within the same mark-up as the content because that is still how browsers work. Thus, I like to keep my relative content tightly together in the hope that one day I can just take it all out.

Being that features such as print links are already available through the browser by people that need them, am I really adding to accessibility? Or just slowing users down by adding more clutter to my pages to compensate for features that are better served by browser? afterall, how long can we developers keep adding features into pages that are already available in the browsers that they are destined to be displayed in?

End of ranting.

Steven