Style Tips

Tables

Tables tend to be overused on many websites. They are intended for displaying tabular data, but too often people use them as a "short cut" to arrange text and images on a page. This can be confusing to screen readers, and can make the page look messy. If you want more information about this issue, please read this FAQ on htmlhelp.com.

If all you are trying to do is align an image, quite often you can achieve your desired effect simply by changing the properties of the image (see "Adding Images" below for more details).

Headings

Well-placed website headings aid in accessibility. They follow a hierarchy, with H1 being the top level, and so you should keep that in mind when choosing headings for your page (you choose headings using the "Format" drop-down when you edit the page). The "H1" heading on each page of this website is the title in the maroon band (e.g. on this page it reads "Website Best Practices". The rest of the hierarchy looks like this:

and so on. Most pages won't need this many headings, this example is purely for demonstration!