[Bug 8447] Tighter definition on the aside element

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8447





--- Comment #5 from Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>  2009-12-07 14:23:43 ---
(In reply to comment #2)
> This was an error. It confuses the semantics of the element. It no longer is
> equivalent to a typographical sidebar. It's really nothing more than an element
> that represents "something that is no content". 

That's precisely the semantics we're looking for (where the "no content" label
is in relative to the main content of the page).  Web pages often include tons
of crap that are not required to be read to understand the page; we sighted
people can easily see that and skip over such content until we choose to
specifically look at it, but it's more difficult for people using screenreaders
to do so.  Marking up that semantic explicitly will hopefully allow such users
the ability to emulate the ease of ignoring irrelevant things that we sighted
take for granted.

You've latched onto a wrong idea about the 'appropriate' semantics, and then
are judging the element based on that.  It states in the element definition
what the semantics actually are.


> That's too loose, and not useful. And, unfortunately, such looseness will lead
> to confusion about use, and aside will, most likely, end up being used
> incorrectly. 

As noted above, it's actually a very useful semantic.  It's also very difficult
to misuse <aside> because of that; even putting the main nav of the page in an
<aside>, while possibly not ideal, wouldn't be 'incorrect'; at worst it's
unnecessary because users should also be able to skip <nav>s.


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Received on Monday, 7 December 2009 14:23:45 UTC