Throughout this chapter, we've added semantic meaning and
structure to one of the pages for our reference site.
In this chapter's challenge,
we're going to explore the structure of our finished page and then use the rules
that we established there to add structure to the remainder of the site.
So, I have the lab instructions for our challenge opened up.
I've opened this from the 04_010 directory.
And as always, this is just a text file that contains the instructions for
this particular challenge.
And the first thing that it asks you to do is open up the structure.htm.
Explore the page structure, the use of the ARIA roles.
So, on a piece of notepaper or a notepad or
something, write out the document outline and how structural tags like aside,
article, nav, and section are being used.
And then examine how semantic tags like header, footer and
main elements are being used as well.
So, try to define the strategy that's being used on this page so
that you can use it throughout the site.
And that means, of course, opening up the structure file and then scanning through
it and looking at all those things we just talked about in the instructions.
Now, the next thing that you want to do is go in to each of the remaining pages,
intro, links, next, reference, and syntax, and then using that
strategy that you just defined from this structure.htm file, you want to structure
each of the remaining files so that the sites use a consistent logical structure.
So you're going to place all of the structural elements and
all the semantic tags in there.
Again, if I go over to intro,
you'll see that it lacks any of those tags like a header, main, footer, article.
It doesn’t have any of those guides.
It still has a document outline because the headers are being used, but
the remainder of the structure is not there.
So you’ll need to put it in place using the strategy that
you devised from the structured.htm file.
And then the last instruction is to apply the ARIA roles and
that of course applies to all pages as well.
Now, you could do this as a two-step process.
You could structure a page and then define the roles.
But my advice to you, as one author to another, is to go ahead and
do these simultaneously.
Meaning, if you put a header element on a page, go ahead and
apply the ARIA role that is appropriate for that one on that element.
That's going to get you in the habit of adding these roles when you
add an element and I think that's a great practice to have.
If you just make it part of your normal authoring process,
then it's not something that you have to remember to go back and do.
You've already done.
Now, as we've done before, when you're finished, go ahead and
open up those same exact files from the finished files directory.
Compare your results to the finished files.
Now, in the past, we've talked about judgment calls and about how things might
be slightly different, and maybe you come up with a different strategy.
But for the most part, your files and the finished files should match and
that structure needs to be consistent all the way throughout.
Okay, I know that's a lot of work.
I know you're going to be editing a lot of pages and
sort of doing the same thing over again, but I want you to have the experience of
having to consider multiple pages across a site when you're developing strategies for
how content should be structured and formatted.
So, take your time on the lab and as always, have fun.