[thelist] happy heading hierarchies
Marty Landman
marty at face2interface.com
Mon Mar 5 09:29:52 CST 2001
At Monday 3/5/01 10:04 AM, rudy wrote:
>you know how they say you should always code <h1> first, and then <h2>, and
>then <h3>, and so on?
[..snip..]
>who are these people, anyway? and what will happen if i skip a level?
>browsers show it exactly the way i want, but will it fail strict validation
>or something?
Seems you're trying to use the fact that browsers render the more important
headers in larger type to help lay out your site. And strictly speaking
this is incorrect.
Think about what will be rendered to a visually impaired person, maybe
someone that can only listen to the page rather than see it. Or search
engines who don't see the page visually. The headings hierarchy is meant to
indicate relative importance, like in an outline. In that context does it
make sense to precede a higher order heading with a lower order one as part
of a logical area of a document?
So... you should use font tags or CSS equiv's to control appearance and
heading tags to control the specification of your page's organization. Of
course this is only my opinion based on what others have told me when
asking a similar question. You did begin by asking about the reasoning
behind the standards, right? Please accept that as the spirit in which the
answer is given.
Marty
http://face2interface.com
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