Re: HTML 5 Authoring Guidelines Proposal the use of the section element and its potential impact on screen reader users

Joshue O Connor wrote:
> It therefore makes *far* more sense (on several levels) in the HTML 5 
> Authoring Guidelines Proposal <section> example to use:
> 
> <body>
>   <h1>Top Level Heading</h1>
>   <section>
>     <h2>Second Level Heading</h2>
>     <section>
>       <h3>Third Level Heading</h3>
>     </section>
>   </section>
> </body>
> 
> instead of
> 
> <body>
>   <h1>Top Level Heading</h1>
>   <section>
>     <h1>Second Level Heading</h1>
>     <section>
>       <h1>Third Level Heading</h1>
>     </section>
>   </section>
> </body>

The guidelines will include both types of examples and will explain the 
graceful degradation issues with using all h1 elements in legacy 
browsers.  However, in the future when all browsers in use support HTML5 
reasonably well, using all h1s will be more useful because it allows 
sections to be moved around between documents without having to worry 
about manually adjusting the heading level.

e.g. I could write an article on my blog where on the front page or 
archive pages, the article headings are level 3, but on the individual 
article pages they may need to be level 2.  With the current model, 
authors either have to artificially increase or decrease the heading 
levels on some pages so they all match, or manually adjust the heading 
numbers.  With the HTML5 model, that's handled automatically.

> Also, In order for the sections to be discoverable by AT there will have 
> to be some algorithm that is triggered in the UA to inform a screen 
> reader user that " This <h1> section has other parts". I thought this
> was naturally inferred by a structured document?

I don't see why that wouldn't be possible with the way it is currently 
defined.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Tuesday, 27 November 2007 13:56:17 UTC