Re: GL 3.1 L3 SC4 (Section titles)

This is a nice suggestion.

I am also working on the guide doc for GL 2.4 L2 SC3, "Delivery units have
descriptive titles". I find myself wrestling with trying to describe
descriptive titles in both places. I think we want the definitions and
techniques to be consistent,  but I don't think this qualifies as a glossary
term. 

I think your proposal would make it easier to share the techniques for
making a title descriptive. I worry that the current techniques for sections
are context dependent, that is, they depend on the other headers that will
be scanned at the same time. Maybe this is an argument for removing those
techniques, although I think they are important for some uses.

Loretta



On 10/9/05 11:59 AM, "John M Slatin" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

> 
> Sorry to be chiming in so late with this. But I think the proposed
> definition of "section" is problematic.
> 
> The proposal is to define a "section" as a "self-contained" part of an
> authored unit. I worry that, if taken literally, this would include
> every element in HTML that has an open and close tag. I know that's
> absurd, but <p>yatta yatta</p> is self-contained, and for that matter so
> is <a>link to something</a>.
> 
> It may also be a problem that there's no such thing as a <section>
> element in HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.x.
> 
> However, I'm not sure the definition is at the root of the problem. I
> think it might be the SC itself.
> 
> In the SC we try to require a certain kind of treatment for "section
> titles," but then it turns out we were making very HTML-specific
> assumptions that depend on a loosely shared convention about what
> constitutes a "section" within an HTML document.
> 
> What about something like the following for the SC itself?
> 
> <proposed>
> Titles and headings are descriptive.
> </proposed>
> 
> My thought in proposing this is that this SC is concerned only with the
> characteristics of the title or heading-- we don't really care whether
> it titles a delivery unit or a section within a text document. Where
> sections are concerned, all we can require is that *if* an author puts a
> heading on it, the heading should be descriptive. We may not like it if
> the author doesn't provide such titles, but I think that's a different
> issue.
> 
> Also, if the above proposal is accepted, we won't need to tie ourselves
> in knots trying to define "section". <grin>
> 
> Note: There is a <section> element in the proposed XHTML 2.0
> specification: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml2/mod-structural.html#sec_8.8.
> If the <section> element is used, then it has a child element called <h>
> which defines the logical structure. These can be nested.
> 
> The  old familiar <h1>...<h6> are also available in XHTML 2.0.
> 
> There's potential for confusion here, and I think that makes a good
> argument for omitting the word "section" from the SC and adding the word
> "headings."
> 
> John
> PS Sorry I didn't do this in the WIKI, but I wasn't able to get in this
> afternoon.
> "Good design is accessible design."
> 
> Dr. John M. Slatin, Director
> Accessibility Institute
> University of Texas at Austin
> FAC 248C 
> 1 University Station G9600
> Austin, TX 78712 
> ph 512-495-4288, fax 512-495-4524
> email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu
> Web http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility
> 
>

Received on Sunday, 9 October 2005 21:21:36 UTC