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<h> around images

for

From: Steve Vosloo
Date: Sep 1, 2002 11:54PM


Tom, I'm changing the thread to ask you about <h1><img src="logo.png"
alt="My Company" /></h1> ...

Is it alright to do this? A client of mine has a site where every page
title is a GIF ... I told them to rather change it to HTML text using an
<h1> header. Could I have told them to simply put <h1> tags around the
image?

Because of the resizing of text factor I think HTML text is a better
long term solution ... But on a tight budget it'd be better for them to
use <h1>'s around an image than ignore the problem completely.

Thanks
Steve



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Gilder [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
> Sent: 30 August 2002 09:26 PM
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: Re: Sample Sites
>
>
> On Friday, August 30, 2002, 7:26:08 PM, you wrote:
> > > > http://1stpc.org
> > > The site is great. I viewed it without style sheets and
> noticed that
> > > when linearized the page content comes first and then the
> left hand
> > > links. Is this intentional -- I normally do it the other
> way around.
> >
> > 1) lynx and screen readers: If you have used lynx a lot
> (and I have,
> > it was my primary browser for some time) you know how awful it is
> > trying to get to the 'meat' of a page because there's
> usually so much
> > fluff before it -- OR you get the same navigation menus
> over and over
> > again on each page, which gets annoying fast
>
> However, what if you *want* to get to the navigation quickly
> using a screenreader? In that case, you have to listen to the
> entire page content beforehand.
>
> In my opinion it makes more sense (visually, at least) to
> have navigation before content - and then provide a "skip
> navigation" link. You could also solve this problem with a
> "jump to navigation" link near the start of the document.
>
> This is a bit of an accessibility hack, and I feel future
> versions of XHTML need to allow authors a standard way to
> label what is content and what is navigation, to allow
> screenreader users to quickly navigate between the two (I put some
thoughts on that issue up at > <http://tom.me.uk/2002/8/dividing->;
pages.html>).
>
> > 2) Google
> loves me. I'm not sure why, I
> haven't done anything special
> > at all to appeal to them, but my site (www.tntluoma.com) is
> near the
> > top of a number of keyword searches.
>
> Google tends to rate pages higher if the content is nearer
> the beginning of the document. It also pays attention to
> headers (I do hope this won't lead to
> <body><h1>...</h1></body> to try and get better search engine
> ranking though).
>
> > My guess is that if we (folks who care about accessibility and
> > standards) could show others (who don't know or don't care)
> how much
> > improvement they would have in search engine placement by following
> > standards, they'd probably listen more.
>
> When I have tried to explain to people in the past why
> something like <h1><img src="logo.png" alt="My Company"
> /></h1> makes sense, they often haven't cared much until I've
> gone "oh, and it might well increase your Google ranking too".
>
> If you can come up with a benefit of accessibility that
> marketing people speak, then they are far more likely to listen :)
>
>
> Cheers
> --
> Tom Gilder
> http://tom.me.uk/
>
>
> ----
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> visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/
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