HTML5: Where do you normally place the banner content? Header area, Section, or..?

[skunker]

Lets say you have a home page with a banner (slider) right below the logo and nav menu. Do you place that banner in the HEADER area or the SECTION area? I'd like to avoid the vanilla DIV element for semantic purposes.

In other words, is the BANNER normally considered part of the HEADER?

Thanks for any clarification.

[ralph.m]

Theoretically, the <header> element is meant to contain "introductory or navigational aids", which is not really the purpose of a slider, as I see it, although I guess you could argue otherwise. I think of it more as regular content, so I'd put it in a <section> (that is, if I were prepared to use these elements at all, which I'm not, as I consider them to be vague and silly. I would probably use a UL.)

[dresden_phoenix]

This is why I often say SEMANTICS is about what you MEAN TO SAY, not about tags or placements.




Before HTML5, I GENERALLY structured a page like this:

<div role="branding">
<div class="logo"></div>
<div class="motto">most often a client is too confused to actually develop  some branding  copy and relies instead on sliders (shotgun approach, but ok)  so this worked nicely</div>
</div>
<ul role="nav">
</ul>
<div role="content">
      <div role="main">
      </div>
      <div role="aside">
      </div>
</div>
<div role="foot">
</div>

on occasion i used a cephalothorax (as content and foot being metaphorically the abdomen for some reason) which simply meant I put a wrapper around NAV and BRANDING. remember that there is nothing wrong with having the occasion DIV in HTML5

So it really depend on what the slider is. Think about it this way ... if you were placing a simple motto or mission statement in the same place in the header would you feel such trepidation? So if the slider is just a poor marketing strategy for clients who can decide on an identity and this what they ape putting in place of a mission statement or motto , or list of capabilities.. then it quite reasonable to have the slider in the main header, is it not?

If the slider is really just a 'portfolio', or functional mini pages .. then it most likely just a SECTION .

Hope that helps