[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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