RE: 4.13.1 Bread crumb navigation - use of right angle brackets

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
"What I would like to understand is whether and how this item count thing, or some other special effect that <ul> might trigger, actually helps in the case of a breadcrumb."

You listen to the information about the list, listen to the information provided by the nav, add it to the information you've already gathered about the page, put it into the context of what you're trying to do, and make a decision from there.

For example: If I am on a page just above the start of the content area, and my screen reader announces "Navigation region, list of 3 items", and I am looking for the breadcrumb, there is enough evidence to suggest I'm in the right place to make further investigation worthwhile.

"So what I would do, by not using <ul>, is that  prevent some software that has been programmed to count the items in it and tell the number to the user from doing so."

By preventing the software from presenting the information, you also remove the user's ability to use that information to make a reasoned decision about the content.

"Conversely, if I do use <ul> in order to make such a thing possible, it is not semantic, it is not structural, it is simply authoring with some client software in mind."

No, it's using HTML according to spec. The ul element is intended to represent a list of items, a breadcrumb is a list of links.

"That would be OK if the amount of work needed and the possible negative side effects weigh less than the gain. I don’t think we know enough about any part of this equation."

Negative effects? The amount of work involved is negligible, perhaps a total of 35 additional HTMl characters and a couple of lines of CSS.

Léonie.

Received on Wednesday, 13 November 2013 18:16:03 UTC