Re: [WSG] advices for using headings more correctly
Hi. Thanks to everyone that give me advices about how to use headings (and how to dont mess nor waste them). and I hope to hear few more approachs about how to use headings consistently across homepage and internal pages. h1 AND WEBSITE NAME/TITLE I wouldn't recommend using an h1 for the website title. If you're concerned with identifying the website (for example to screen readers) then include the website name/title in the title element, e.g: I like this approach. So, the idea is: "dont waste an h1 for the website title in each page". I like that. It seems to be redundant to include the site name in every page in an h1. I'm looking at some pages where h1 for the website name is only used in the homepage. Then, in internal/content pages, the h1 usually goes for the section name or the article title. Of course, this second approach seems to need a little more development for the stylesheet. Thanks for the advices. Julin Andy Kirkwood|Motive wrote: Hi Julin, SEMANTICS EXTRACTOR Sometimes a view that approximates the semantics of the content can be useful. Fortunately the W3C have just such a tool: http://www.w3.org/2003/12/semantic-extractor.html . This will likely affirm Paul's point regarding an h3 as a 'parent' to an h2 element (i.e. don't). INDEX vs CONTENT PAGES It's also worth distinguishing between index and content pages when considering use of heading elements to impose structure. (An index page being an entry-point to a section of a website, for example a list of recent articles structured by topic.) For this type of page you might want to re-jig the hierarchies, e.g.: h1Articles/h1 h2Topic/h2 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 h2Topic/h2 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 If you have articles and guide on the same page, then this would be one of the rare instances where multiple h1 elements may be appropriate. h1 AND WEBSITE NAME/TITLE I wouldn't recommend using an h1 for the website title. If you're concerned with identifying the website (for example to screen readers) then include the website name/title in the title element, e.g: head titleContent title | Website name/title /head body h1Content title/h1 ... /body See 'Typical user scenario: 1-7 for an outline of how a screen reader may interpret page elements': http://www.standards-schmandards.com/index.php?2005/01/10/13-browsing-habits For more on the title element http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/meta.php Best regards,
Re: [WSG] advices for using headings more correctly
On 04/11/05, Julián Landerreche [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I'm looking at some pages where h1 for the website name is only used in
the homepage. Then, in internal/content pages, the h1 usually goes for the
section name or the article title.
Of course, this second approach seems to need a little more development for
the stylesheet.
It's actually not that difficult, if you want to have them looking
different. Just do something like this:
body id=home
h1Site Title/h1
Then in your style sheet you can have:
h1{
styles for internal h1's
}
#home h1 {
styles for site title h1
}
Cheers,
Seona.
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RE: [WSG] advices for using headings more correctly
Hi Julián, H1 should only be used once, generally as your page title. In the detail view of an article the article's titleshould be an H1,unless your article pages always carry the parent title of e.g. News, in which case you would use H2 or lower. H2 headings and lower can be used repeatedly but they need to keep their numerical hierarchy. H1 H2 H3 H2 H3 H4 H3 H4 H2 ... You shouldn't use an H3 as a parent to an H2 tag. If you're concerned about the visual appearance then there is nothing wrong with bumping up the size of the H3 tag for your articles. Your suggested use of headings in the classic markup example you provided is correct. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Julián LanderrecheSent: Thursday, 3 November 2005 9:16 AMTo: wsg@webstandardsgroup.orgSubject: [WSG] advices for using headings more correctly I know this is a topic that often comes back to the list. Well, it comes back again.I'm having some troubles when trying to think how headings should be used, and I'm always thinking about simplify the site structure, but that simplification always seems to mean "strip out content".Summary of this e-mail: I want to know some good practices about using heading tags. Specially for the first three levels (h1, h2, h3) that are usually the most used tags for headings, and that I often find myself doing "malabares" to create a good site structure using headings. I'm a bit lost.Suppose this basic content:My site title...navigation... My section name Latest Articles Article 1 Title paragraph Article 2 Title paragraph..etc..How will you mark it up? I think the usual (clasic) mark-up ish1My site titleh1...navigation... h2My section name/h2 h3Latest Articles/h3 h4Article 1 Title/h4 pparagraph/p h4Article 2 Title/h4 pparagraph/pBut I would like to know if the following is a valid way too (i'm not talking about valid code, but valid content structure).h1My site titleh1...navigation...hr / h1My section name/h1 *h3Latest Articles/h3* h2Article 1 Title/h2 pparagraph/p h2Article 2 Title/h2 pparagraph/pNotice that I'm using h1 level headings twice, but *most important* is that i'm using an h3 heading *before* and h2 heading. Why?I want to give *more relevance to the "Articles Titles"* than to the "Latest Articles" heading, because that last one is more a kind of "separation heading". I think the "Latest articles" as a level 3 heading more like a visual/semantic/structure aid for users to know what is the content that comes below that heading.So, I find myself lost and this are some questions I have:1. Should I mark-up "Latest Articles" with another tag that is not a heading tag? The problem here is that if I mark it up with anything else, it's probably that I will use stylesheet to "transform" it into a heading, and that is something I want to avoid.2. Or should I keep a minor-level heading (h3 before h2) to mark it up? 3. Should I include My Site Title wrapped by a heading in all pages? Should I include My Section Name?4. Or should I start directly with a h1/h2 applied to the most relevant content in the page (articles in this case)?5. Should I avoid to repeat headings of the same level in the same page?6. Anything else I should know about the world of headings?Thanks in advance and excuse my english.Julián
Re: [WSG] advices for using headings more correctly
Hi there, One reason there is so much debate is the HTML 4.01 spec actually whimps out of making a call ;) In other words, it doesn't actually say if skipping a level is wrong; it just says some people think it's wrong. What the spec DOES say is that the headings are ordered from 1 to 6 in order of importance, so it does actually imply that they should always be kept in order. Personally I think they should always be in order, never jump from 1 to 3 to 2, always go 1-2-3. So as you'd expect I would go with this: h1My site titleh1 ...navigation... h2My section name/h2 h3Latest Articles/h3 h4Article 1 Title/h4 pparagraph/p h4Article 2 Title/h4 pparagraph/p I would actually ask whether the latest articles heading is actually needed - do you separate latest from older on the same page? If not, then just remove the latest articles heading, since their presence implies that they are the latest articles (as a general rule, people do not publish their oldest articles at the top of the page). If you *do* divide the articles then you need to leave in the semantically correct latest/old headings to define the sections. It would be incorrect to bump up the articles' heading level if they are actually contained within another section. As a general rule, when in doubt about heading levels I think how would this go in XHTML 2.0, using section and h elements?. It helps think in terms of sections and levels/groupings of content. I hope that helps :) cheers, Ben Buchanan -- --- http://www.200ok.com.au/ --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] advices for using headings more correctly
There's nothing wrong with: h1My site titleh1 ...navigation... h2My section name/h2 h3Latest Articles/h3 h4Article 1 Title/h4 pparagraph/p h4Article 2 Title/h4 pparagraph/p Another option is: h1My site titleh1 ...navigation... h2My section name/h2 pLatest Articles/p h3Article 1 Title/h3 pparagraph/p h3Article 2 Title/h3 pparagraph/p since Latest Articles is not very important here, and there might not be any subsection called older articles. But yes, keep them in order. Site title is probably good on all pages, to be consistent, and section names are good too. -- -- C Montoya rdpdesign.com ... liquid.rdpdesign.com ... montoya.rdpdesign.com ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
Re: [WSG] advices for using headings more correctly
Hi Julián, SEMANTICS EXTRACTOR Sometimes a view that approximates the semantics of the content can be useful. Fortunately the W3C have just such a tool: http://www.w3.org/2003/12/semantic-extractor.html . This will likely affirm Paul's point regarding an h3 as a 'parent' to an h2 element (i.e. don't). INDEX vs CONTENT PAGES It's also worth distinguishing between index and content pages when considering use of heading elements to impose structure. (An index page being an entry-point to a section of a website, for example a list of recent articles structured by topic.) For this type of page you might want to re-jig the hierarchies, e.g.: h1Articles/h1 h2Topic/h2 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 h2Topic/h2 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 h3Article title/h3 If you have articles and guide on the same page, then this would be one of the rare instances where multiple h1 elements may be appropriate. h1 AND WEBSITE NAME/TITLE I wouldn't recommend using an h1 for the website title. If you're concerned with identifying the website (for example to screen readers) then include the website name/title in the title element, e.g: head titleContent title | Website name/title /head body h1Content title/h1 ... /body See 'Typical user scenario: 1-7 for an outline of how a screen reader may interpret page elements': http://www.standards-schmandards.com/index.php?2005/01/10/13-browsing-habits For more on the title element http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/meta.php Best regards, -- Andy Kirkwood | Creative Director Motive | web.design.integrity http://www.motive.co.nz ph: (04) 3 800 800 fx: (04) 970 9693 mob: 021 369 693 93 Rintoul St, Newtown PO Box 7150, Wellington South, New Zealand ** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help **
