Putting the Content First

Putting the Content First (Full Version)

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Nicole -> Putting the Content First (5/12/2006 5:18:51)

Using the same example... http://www.users.on.net/~nicoleoz/services.htm

I thought one of the benefits of CSS positioning was to be able to put your sontent first and all the other information like banner, navigation, etc afterwards in the code.

Given that I'm using includes in this example for "skip links/site map/accessibility", "banner" and "text-resizer" before my content, my code looks like this:

<div id="container">
<div id="skip"><!--webbot bot="Include" U-Include="includes/skip.htm" TAG="BODY" --></div><!-- end skip include -->
<div id="banner"><!--webbot bot="Include" U-Include="includes/banner.htm" TAG="BODY" --></div><!-- end banner include -->
<div id="textresize"><!--webbot bot="Include" U-Include="includes/textresize.htm" TAG="BODY" --></div><!-- end textresize include -->
  <div id="content">
   <h2>Professional, Affordable Web Site Design</h2>
   <p>Are you in the market for a website and surfing the Internet for web design information? Sydney website design business NixDesign creates
   professional, affordable websites for your business, organisation or personal needs. At NixDesign we know that standards compliant, accessible 
   websites are the only way to reach the maximum audience for your specific needs, and we do this by designing creative, ambient and compliant 
   websites with an overall consistency between pages to keep your potential customer or client focussed.</p>

So, isn't that kind of the same as having all of those includes appear in the code first anyway?

How do I go about positioning these includes with say "co-ordinates", so then I can put all the inclues at the end of the code and when a page is rendered it'll just know that the skip links go first, then the banner, then the text-resizer etc.?

Am I losing the plot with this question, is it possible somehow?

Nicole

Tailslide -> RE: Putting the Content First (5/12/2006 6:51:20)
Yes that's fine - that's where you want the skip links as that's where they'll be most useful to people. One thing to note though would be that if your nav is at the end of the page then either you need your skip links to go to the Navigation or have one to content and one to navigation. Otherwise people have to go through all the content to get to the nav and it sort of defeats the purpose- if that makes sense. There's a certain amount of argument (suprise suprise) about whether content first is good for accessibility with studies that show people expect the nav first. I don't see it as a problem as long as you've got skip links in there people can go where they want. So I'd do it as you have said. Skip links then banner & resizers then content then navigation is fine. Having content first is good for SEO - it's not going to be a disaster if you've got a couple of other small bits in there before the content.

Tailslide -> RE: Putting the Content First (5/12/2006 6:54:48)
BTW - if you're going to leave the skip to content skip link in there - you need it to say "skip to contents" otherwise screenreaders will misread it as content rather than content.

Nicole -> RE: Putting the Content First (5/12/2006 16:47:12)
quote: BTW - if you're going to leave the skip to content skip link in there - you need it to say "skip to contents" otherwise screenreaders will misread it as content rather than content. That's interesting Tail, wonder why that is? Thanks for your other comments also. I think I may have just been expecting to get away absolute content first and everything else later. Maybe I was taking it all too literally? Nicole

Tailslide -> RE: Putting the Content First (5/12/2006 16:55:37)
Yeah - unless I'm misunderstanding the whole thing too - it really should be called "content before sidebars or navigation" which would make a lot more sense!

BonRouge -> RE: Putting the Content First (5/13/2006 5:46:04)
If it's any help, there are ways to put your content first. Here's one way I came up with. (It was for somone who specifically wanted this order: content, footer, left (navigation), header. ) http://bonrouge.com/2c-hf-content1st.php I hope it helps in some way.

jaybee -> RE: Putting the Content First (5/13/2006 6:32:13)
Thanks for that Bon Rouge, I'm sure it'll be very useful.

Nicole -> RE: Putting the Content First (5/13/2006 16:48:46)
Thanks Bon Rouge, I'll take a good look at that later on today. Nice site too btw, I bookmarked it!. Nicole

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