[html5] <nav> for external links?

Thu Apr 28 15:02:28 PDT 2011

On 4/27/11, Jukka K. Korpela <jukka.k.korpela at kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> The crucial question, I think, is "_why_ whould you use the nav element?"
> And I think the main answer is implicit, or partially expressed, in the note
> "User agents (such as screen readers) that are targeted at users who can
> benefit from navigation information being omitted in the initial rendering,
> or who can benefit from navigation information being immediately available,
> can use this element as a way to determine what content on the page to
> initially skip and/or provide on request."
>
> What I mean is that a nav element is something that could be hidden when the
> user wishes to concentrate on the content proper and ignore any navigation
> for the moment _and_ could be brought up and highlighted, maybe even in a
> separate window or interface, perhaps hiding all content proper for the
> moment, when the user wishes to navigate. This would allow toggling between
> "content mode" and "navigation mode", so to say. So it might be seen as an
> abstraction of the common paradigm of having a "nav menu" on the left and
> "content area" on the right, so that the placement (visual or in markup
> order) of the navigation area(s) is not essential and may vary.
>
How is one to decide when to use
<div><nav><ol><a></a>..</ol></nav></div> rather than
<head><link>..</head>?

Also, putting <nav> inside <body> seems confusing to me, as it's
clearly never to be part of the body.