Re H42 Heading technique revision

 

I’ve provided a suggested revision to H42 reflecting the discussion
below. 

  

_Cheers_ 

_David MacDonald_ 

_ _ 

_... access empowers ..._ 

_                 ... barriers disable ..._ 

  

  

  

 w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] David
MacDonald
  June-17-10 1:05 PM
  w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
  H2 Heading example 

  

  

Hi All 

  

As we prepare for a refresh on the Techniques document, members of the
Canadian Government access working group have brought to our attention the
example in H42 (code below), which is about using headings to mark up
structure. In WCAG 2.0 we do not require the nesting of headings, but they
feel we should at least provide examples which encourage the structure laid
out in the HTML spec. The current example uses an H2 to mark up a Nav bar
in a 3 column layout and an H1 to Mark up the main content. They feel it
leads to confusion for policy makers and template makers for several
reasons: 

  

1) The first heading in the code is an H2, (it's there because of the CSS
layout but it is still confusing to some)  

2) The H2 is not a Sub Heading of the only other H1 in code. 

3) The H2 is used to mark up the Navigation Menu and they feel this is
driving a stake into the ground about the way WCAG 2 is recommending web
designers build Nav bars, and the way policy makers require Navigation
menus to be build.  

  

My feeling is that given that ARIA and HTML 5 are going to have much
better ways of marking up NAV bars and three column layouts, we should
discard the example that tries to use Headings for the purpose of
identifying and dictating the importance of the NAV bar (and also the
Right hand menu) in relation to the main content. I'm recommending instead
a simple hierarchical example. And add some text to the description of the
technique to make it clear that although hierarchical headings are
preferred when appropriate, they are not required under the guidelines. 

  

Current example... 

  

Example 1 

  

  

 

SITE NAVIGATION

  

  

  

  

  

 

STOCK MARKET UP TODAY

  

  

  

  

  

 

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