Structural XHTML: div or Not?
Today, Jeffrey Zeldman commented on Segment Puglishing’s “elegantly minimalist design” and “simple, structural XHTML.” I wholeheartedly agree that it’s a work of beautiful minimalist design, but I’m not so sure it’s a good example of structural XHTML.
A quick look at the source reveals that they’re using div elements for almost every element on the page. While very useful for styling ranges of text and images, div elements don’t give a document much structure. They’re one of two grouping elements that offer a “generic mechanism for adding structure to a document.” That is, they add structure by grouping ranges of text and images, but don’t say anything about the content they contain.
h1 —- h6, p and phrase elements give a document true structure. When I redesigned unraveled, I tried to use these structural elements as much as possible. Consequently, div and span elements are used as infrequently as possible. In no particular order, I use div and span elements only when necessary:
- to position or style sections of the page.
- to add generic structure to the document.
- when warrented by lack of CSS support.
div elements work, but if you want to give your document real structure, I don’t recommend using them excessively.
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Comments
I know what you mean. I think the best example of a structured CSS design is that of Tantek’s log (http://tantek.com/log/). I use the div tag a lot for positioning but try and reframe from using the div tag to hold text.
Paul Michael Smith on 31 May 03