[Bug 19060] New: add "type" attribute to <nav> to distinguish between primary and secondary navigation

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=19060

           Summary: add "type" attribute to <nav> to distinguish between
                    primary and secondary navigation
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: All
               URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/semantics.html#the-nav-elem
                    ent
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Keywords: NE
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec
        AssignedTo: dave.null@w3.org
        ReportedBy: contributor@whatwg.org
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org, kennyluck@w3.org


This was was cloned from bug 7557 as part of operation LATER convergence.
Originally filed: 2009-09-09 18:35:00 +0000
Original reporter: Michael[tm] Smith <mike@w3.org>

================================================================================
 #0   Michael[tm] Smith                               2009-09-09 18:35:44 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would be useful to have a "type" attribute on <nav> with the enumerated
values "primary" and "secondary".

Rationale and use case:

Many documents contain different classes of navigational content. In most
documents that provide such classes of navigational content, the main
difference is between primary navigation and secondary navigation.

The distinction between what constitutes primary navigation and what
constitutes secondary navigation is of course not universal, but one way to
describe the distinction would be: Primary navigation is the main set of
navigational links for a site -- the important stuff that consistently and
prominently appears in the same page on every page of a site -- and secondary
navigation is the less important stuff that appears less prominently and
perhaps less consistently and may not always be in the same place on every page
of site.

In the section defining <nav> in the current draft spec itself, one of the
examples (currently the second example there) shows a case of <nav> being used
to mark up both some primary navigation and some secondary navigation. So that
seems to help support the argument that it would be useful to have a standard
means to mark up the different between those two classes of navigation.

Also, as the note at the beginning of the section on <nav> mentions, UAs such
as screen readers [or, by the way, browsers on mobile handsets] can use the
<nav> element as a way to determine what content on the page to initially skip
and/or provide on only on request [in the same of browsers on mobile devices,
they might, for example, want to provide access to such navigation through a
soft-key menu on the device, instead of rendering it in the main text flow of
the page].

But for such UAs, it would be useful to have a means to distinguish primary
navigation from secondary navigation; for example, they might want to make the
main navigation more easily skippable or available through other means, but 
keep the secondary navigation within the main text flow.

So the use case here is basically to enable users to have a different user
experience for primary navigation and secondary navigation in cases where it
makes sense for them to -- and thus for page authors and UAs that want to allow
end users a different user experience of primary navigation and secondary
navigation, to provide a standard means for making the distinction between the
two.
================================================================================
 #1   Michael[tm] Smith                               2009-09-09 19:50:40 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(In reply to comment #0)
> Primary navigation is the main set of
> navigational links for a site -- the important stuff that consistently and
> prominently appears in the same page on every page of a site

Make that, "prominently appears in the same *place* on every page of a site".
================================================================================
 #2   Ian 'Hixie' Hickson                             2009-09-18 21:56:04 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think we should wait to have more implementation experience with <nav> as it
is today before adding more features to it.
================================================================================
 #3   Maciej Stachowiak                               2010-03-14 14:50:55 +0000 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This bug predates the HTML Working Group Decision Policy.

If you are satisfied with the resolution of this bug, please change the state
of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the
editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the
issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to
this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a
tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this
document:
  http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

This bug is now being moved to VERIFIED. Please respond within two weeks. If
this bug is not closed, reopened or escalated within two weeks, it may be
marked as NoReply and will no longer be considered a pending comment.
================================================================================

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Received on Tuesday, 25 September 2012 22:02:23 UTC