Additional tips

Quotations

Mark up quotations using the CITE, Q and BLOCKQUOTE tags. Several informative attributes can be added as well.

Q is an inline element and can be used for quotations within sentences:

As the greek philosopher <cite>Bias</cite> once said, <q lang="la" xml:lang="de">omnia mea mecum porto</q>.

which is displayed like this:

As the greek philosopher Bias once said, omnia mea mecum porto.

A standard-compliant browser should display the name Bias in italics and surround the quotation with quotation marks. A screen reader will switch to a Latin pronunciation.

BLOCKQUOTE is a block element and is usually displayed as a new paragraph, slightly indented and sometimes in italics (implementation varies in different browsers). Use it for longer quotations.

<blockquote cite="http://designforcommunity.com/
display.cgi/200203281958" title="From: Don't patronize your users">
<p>Users don't read. Users don't scroll. Users need small words, small sentences, bullet lists, anchor links, pats on the head, and milk and cookies before bedtime. [...]</p>
<p>If no one reads online, and they don't scroll, and they don't click, what exactly do they do?</p>
</blockquote>

which is displayed like this:

Users don't read. Users don't scroll. Users need small words, small sentences, bullet lists, anchor links, pats on the head, and milk and cookies before bedtime. [...]

If no one reads online, and they don't scroll, and they don't click, what exactly do they do?

Note the additional information provided in the opening BLOCKQUOTE tag. The source and title of the quotation are included.

Lists

It is a good idea to put full stops at the end of each list item. Not all screen readers can detect ends of lines and will not intonate a pause of end of sentence. Commas would work as well.

Consistency in naming files

Be consistent in naming your files. All lowercase names and an .html (rather than .htm) ending are recommended. Unix servers differentiate between lower- and uppercase. This means, a document named Example.html (mixed upper- and lowercase) will not load if the link to it is specified as example.html (all lowercase).

More information: Naming Conventions for all Web Files and Directories.

Coding style: Quotation marks

Enclose all values of attributes in quotation marks. This is not only good style, it will also help in the transition to XHTML ^[?] and XML ^[?], which will eventually replace HTML ^[?].

Coding style: Close all tags

For the same reason as above, the transition to XHTML and XML, all tags must be closed, either with the closing tag (even if the W3C guidelines state that a closing tag is optional) or with a trailing slash (in case of tags that do not require a closing tag).

The closing tag for paragraphs and for list items is normally optional:

<p>this is a paragraph</p>

<ul>
<li>list item</li>
<li>list item</li>
</ul>

Sometimes closing tags are prohibited. In this case a close-command slash is added at the end of the tag.

<img src="image.gif" />

<br />

Coding style: Lowercase tags

All tags should be written in lowercase letters. This is also a requirement for the transition to XML.

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Last updated: 19 May 2002
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