RE: [12] Use of headings

Ben, I think I was the one (or one of the ones) who raised the issue
about unique headings in the WCAG 2.0 document, and at least at that
point my concern *was* limited to the Guidelines document.

I certainly wouldn't want to make it a requirement-- there are times
when repetitive headings are in fact accurately reflective of document
structure and helpful as navigation aids.  For example, on
http://www.ital.utexas.edu/resource/faq.html, each of the Frequently
Asked Questions is tagged as a heading, and each begins with the word
"Question."  My first instinct was to reject this idea; but then I
discovered that it gave me an easy way to jump from question to
question, whether in order or at random.  The repetition of the word
"Question" is also useful because there's no way for users new to the
page to anticipate what other, more unique words might appear at the
beginning of each question.

So: we should require the use of appropriate markup for headings, then
use our informative examples and the techniques documents to help
readers create appropriate content for those headings.

John

John Slatin, Ph.D.
Director, Institute for Technology & Learning
University of Texas at Austin
FAC 248C
1 University Station G9600
Austin, TX 78712
ph 512-495-4288, f 512-495-4524
email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu
web http://www.ital.utexas.edu
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Caldwell [mailto:caldwell@trace.wisc.edu] 
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 1:52 pm
To: 'Joe Clark'; 'WAI-GL'
Subject: RE: [12] Use of headings



Perhaps this issue [1] needs a bit of clarification...

While I agree that WCAG should not explicitly prohibit the use of
repetitive headings as described in Joe's example, I think that making
some adjustments to the repetitive headings in the guidelines document
increases the usability of the guidelines, sets a good example for
structuring complex documents and is consistent with what we're
currently recommending in checkpoint 2.4 [2].

If I'm remembering correctly, this issue was raised by a member of our
working group and applies only to the guidelines document itself. It was
not meant to imply that requirements for making headings unique would be
introduced into the guidelines.

Thoughts?

-Ben

[1] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=12 
[2] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/#navigation-mechanisms

Received on Friday, 6 June 2003 17:22:19 UTC