RE: Use of the <h1> element

> 1) I ask this because I don't see a true way of saying, within 
> (X)HTML, "this page 
> is part of a collection".

In my view, that's also a reason why we shouldn't now try to set
artificial guidelines and requirements, mandating semantics for
HTML where there's none intended.

> as far as I 
> can see, fail to identify the actual collection of pages in 
> which we are working.

Again, HTML was never meant to have elements to identify collections
etc. Grafting any ad-hoc semantic convention on top of HTML is not
the way to go, in my opinion. Maybe it's time to look into XML proper
and a viable DTD/Schema that unequivocally stores that kind of information
and metadata consistently, and then using some transformation to make
it available in the limited vocabulary of HTML.

> if we are trying to 
> use software to make sense of a document,

I'm with Lois on this one of course: if we're trying to expose
information to a piece of software, then certainly metadata is the
more appropriate way to go.

> It looks fine on Lynx, but I am uncertain as to how 
> a screen reader 
> would interpret this.

Perfectly fine. I tested this quite a while ago with JAWS, and
it correctly recognises that it's a heading and that it should
use the ALT of the image (e.g. when you get the screenreader to
show you the document structure / headings).

(see the comments at the end of 
http://www.mcu.org.uk/articles/alttext.html where I say pretty
much the same as above)

> is it good practice to have an image as a header 
> which is also a link 
> to the "home" page of a collection?

From a usability point of view, it makes sense and is recommended
practice (although purists will then argue that the logo should
be a link to the homepage *except* on the homepage itself, where
it should just be an image)

Patrick
________________________________
Patrick H. Lauke
Webmaster / University of Salford
http://www.salford.ac.uk

Received on Wednesday, 12 May 2004 04:49:52 UTC