Accessibility - Part 8
Article ID: KB101571
Last month we looked at "markup," which labels ("marks") portions of
the code so that it's meaningful. For example, you can mark which
portions of the code are paragraphs and which portions are headings.
This month we'll continue to look at Guideline 3, which states:
Guideline 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
We'll start with some of the easier checkpoints and help you
implement them immediately into your web site.
Checkpoint 3.5. Use header elements to convey document
structure and use them according to specification.
First, what are header elements? In HTML, they are the H1, H2, H3, H4, H5,
and H6 elements. In FrontPage, you may be more familiar with them as
the "Heading 1," "Heading 2," ... "Heading 6" styles in the style
dropdown menu, seen to the right.
Second, how are you supposed to use them? You may have already
guessed that they are to be used for headings - to mark titles of
sections of your page. The headings should also make some kind of
sense if you took out the text in between and act as a sort of
outline of your content.
Finally, how do people usually use them? Many people use headings
simply to get a bigger font size. If you want your site to be
accessible, you'll have to check to make sure that you are using
headings correctly. A good exercise is to copy any headings that
you're using into a word processing program like Microsoft Word,
then read over them and see if they make sense as an outline or
table of contents would. If not, rewrite your content so that you
can use headings that make sense. And instead of using headings for
larger font, create stylesheet classes instead (we'll talk more
about stylesheets later, but for now you can go to
Webmonkey for some nice tutorials).
Checkpoint 3.6. Mark up lists and list items properly.
This is probably the easiest checkpoint to follow if you use
FrontPage, because FrontPage automatically marks up lists properly.
If you tend to hard-code HTML, you'll want to make sure that you
insert closing tags and nest your lists properly.
Checkpoint 3.7. Mark up quotations. Do not use quotation
markup for formatting effects such as indenting.
HTML has the <Q> and <BLOCKQUOTE> tags that are used for marking
up quotations. The <Q> tag should be used for short quotations that
are in a paragraph, as in:
"Hello," John said.
The <BLOCKQUOTE> tag should be used for blocks of text that are
quotations, such as:
Using markup improperly -- not according to specification --
hinders accessibility. Misusing markup for a presentation effect
(e.g., using a table for layout or a header to change the font
size) makes it difficult for users with specialized software to
understand the organization of the page or to navigate through
it.
The <Q> tag is not widely used - mainly because Internet Explorer
for Windows doesn't do anything with it. (IE for Mac, Opera, and
Mozilla actually put quotation marks around the quote when you use
the Q tag.) But if you want an accessible site, you should use it by
going into HTML view and hardcoding the <q> and </q> tags around
your quotes, like this:
<q>Hello,</q> John said.
IE for Mac, Opera, and Mozilla, will display the above line of
code correctly, with quotation marks around the "Hello," but IE for
Windows will not. One thing you can do to remedy this is to use
stylesheets to define the quotes in italics. (Here's an
external link to an article that may help. You should learn a
little about stylesheets already before you read this.)
The 
<BLOCKQUOTE>tag is used in FrontPage when you click the "indent" button on the
toolbar: Many people will use the "indent" button to indent their
text - even if it's not a quotation. If you've used this button
before, look at your HTML code and you'll see the <BLOCKQUOTE> tags.
Is the indented text a quotation? If not, then to make your site
accessible, you'll have to un-indent it and use stylesheets to
achieve an indented look.
Next month we'll continue to look at the checkpoints under
Guideline 3 and how to integrate them into your web site!!
Next: What's Up With Markup? Pt 3
Contributors
Corrie Haffly:
Corrie is the author of the Accessibility series, which appeared
in the PixelMill Newsletter. Though you may not know her name,
Corrie has become one of the top experts in the FrontPage Template
industry. You may know her work better under the name John Galt's
Templates. See Corrie's stunning products today!
John Galt's Templates
John Galt's Tools, PixelMill Newsletter, Volume 3 - Issue 2 : 02/01/2003
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