WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

RE: DL inside UL navigation

for

From: Patrick Lauke
Date: Aug 1, 2005 9:46AM

> ben morrison
> Sent: 01 August 2005 16:35
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: [WebAIM] DL inside UL navigation
>
>
> Ive been given a design from an outside agency that I have to build.
> The usual nested list navigation, but with an added twist of the sub
> navs having differing amounts of children. Am I just making matters
> worse by using a definition list, heres my current code:

It's no a problem as such, but...

> How else could i associate SADC, COMESA etc to belong to AFRICA.

How are you associating AFRICA to belong to Trade Policy Issues, and those
Trade Policy Issues to The project? To follow your rationale through,
you should really mark the whole thing up as nested definition lists, e.g.
(simplified for convenience and clarity):

<dl>
<dt>The project</dt>
<dd>The ACP Regions</dd>
<dd>Trade Policy Issues
<dl>
<dt>Africa:</dt>
<dd>SADC</dd>
</dl>
</dd>
</dl>

I'd say this is one of those (not uncommon) cases where there is no real
solution. Yes, definition lists can be thought as being more explicit in
their hierarchy, but until user agents take advantage of this relationship
(and I believe at this stage none do...but I'd love to stand corrected) it's
in essence just as good as nested, unordered lists.

IMHO of course.

Patrick
___________
Patrick H. Lauke
Webmaster / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk
___________
Web Standards Project (WaSP) Accessibility Task Force
http://webstandards.org/
___________