[access-uk] Re: definition list in JAWS HTML
- From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:47:52 +0000
On Thu, 2006-11-30 at 07:45 +0000, Damon wrote:
> I keep seeing the [following] on web pages in jaws. can someone clear
> up for me what it means or what particular bit of HTML or web coding
> it's responding to.
> When jaws says: Definition list of 1 items ... why is that?
When JAWS says definition list it means it has come across a DL element
in the HTML code. The proper meaning of a DL is defined by the HTML 4.01
specification. To quote:
> Definition lists vary only slightly from other types of lists in that
> list items consist of two parts: a term and a description. The term is
> given by the DT element and is restricted to inline content. The
> description is given with a DD element that contains block-level
> content. [...] Another application of DL, for example, is for marking
> up dialogues, with each DT naming a speaker, and each DD containing
> his or her words.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/lists.html#h-10.3
One item in a definition list might define a single definition for two
terms in the sense of two different spellings, or multiple definitions
for a single term, or both at the same time. When you hear "Definition
list of 1 items" that means there is only one item in this sense.
Web designer opinion has long been divided over whether DL should be
reserved for definitions of terms (as the name might suggested) or used
for more general name-and-value pairings, or item-and-description
pairings, as the specification's description might suggest. In general,
definition lists cannot be assumed to be a list of dictionary
definitions. The first web page ever written used a definition list to
list links to resources and their descriptions.
> As an example, it occurs on the main BBC news page
> www.bbc.co.uk/news/
Turning to the BBC News page, I think your confusion is (in my opinion)
the product of bad design. With JavaScript enabled, those definition
lists are used as an interface to unhide or hide again three other
ordinary lists: "VIDEO AND AUDIO NEWS", "TV AND RADIO PROGRAMMES", and
"MOST POPULAR VIDEO AND AUDIO". With JavaScript enabled, each definition
list contains a single item containing a term such as "VIDEO AND AUDIO
NEWS" defined by a definition of "SHOW" or "HIDE", which you can click
to show or hide the ordinary list in question. Unfortunately, with
JavaScript disabled, the definition lists and terms are still there, but
the definitions "SHOW" or "HIDE" are not.
Effectively, what you're hearing is not sane markup but the skeleton of
an interface designed for those with JavaScript enabled. If this were
well designed, they would be dynamically replacing markup suitable
without JavaScript (such as a simple heading) with markup suitable with
JavaScript, rather than simply adding in the words SHOW and HIDE.
If you (or anyone else) find the BBC News website inaccessible in any
way you may wish to report your experience as a technical problem to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/feedback/default.stm
In my limited experience, the BBC are quite good at responding to such
technical problems.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
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