RE: Re: [#925] mandatory H1

Yvette says:
"For example assume I have a website to teach children
about the Frisian language (a minority language in the
Netherlands). I have a section with nursery rhymes and I
include two versions side by side: a Dutch version and a
Frisian version. I give the Dutch version a Dutch title
with an H1 and the Frisian version a Frisian title with an
H1. Having them side-by-side instead of two separate pages
actually helps people in understanding the content so
helps accessibility for some groups. The other way to have
this content with just 1 H1 would be to create an
artificial extra header which I do not think benefits
anyone."

I would not agree with this example.

Regardless of the examples proposed none validate the
cause for multiple H1 tags on the same page.  I'm not
proposing that only one H1 tag exist on a page.

Now, while we all may be an accessibility experts in one
regard or another we do have other issues we must take
into consideration.  Search engines will demerit pages
with more than one H1 tag.  This is problematic if we
openly state pages can have more than one H1 tag.  I am
_NOT_ stating search engines should control accessibility
... I am only stating something that some may not know.  I
propose we let the page author make their own decision on
this issue.  However, we do need to state that if heading
tags are used H1 must be the first and give clear examples
of proper heading tag use.

I have seen and talked with many accessibility consultants
that seem to think heading on a page should take a
numerical level of importance versus a topical level of
importance.  Instead of using multiple H2 or H3 tags they
have reached H8 which does not exist.  They get confused
because no clear examples exist in the HTML or XHTML
standards.  The only example that exists on the W3C site
is in the HTML Mobile standards which uses the same
examples as the ISO standards.

While we may not have problems understanding this, my
point is simple.  There are people that do not understand
because they don't study the entire realm ... they only
examine what they think is important to them.  That's kind
of like writing a book about other people's research
without understanding everything and then pretending to be
an expert when the expert status doesn't exist.

Lee Roberts
http://www.roserockdesign.com
http://www.applepiecart.com



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Received on Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:48:27 UTC