September Accessibility Tip of the Month: All about Headings
UMD's Accessible Academic Technology Team is challenging the UMD Community to learn one (or more) of the 7 Core Skills of Accessibility during the 2022-23 Academic Year. For September, we are exploring the Core Skill: Headings.
What are headings?
Headings provide structure to documents or web pages. They generally appear as a larger font size and format. Visually, headings help break up large blocks of text while providing digital organization for the content.
Why use headings?
For sighted users, headings provide a visual break in the content which makes scanning and finding relevant information easier.
For people using assistive technologies like a screen reader, headings allow them to navigate the content via their keyboard. Here’s a video of a University of Minnesota employee explaining how screen reader users navigate by headings.
How do I use headings?
Headings are easy to apply; highlight the text that you want formatted, and then select the desired heading from the top menu.
A couple of general guidelines about headings:
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DO use your application’s (Google Doc, Microsoft Word, Drupal, etc.) toolbar to create the headings.
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DON’T just resize the text: screen readers cannot decipher larger text as headings. It's not the same thing!
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DO keep the headings in a numeric order. A Heading 1 should always be the first heading, is usually the title of the page or document, and should only be used once. For subsequent nested headings, start with Heading 2 and then Heading 3, etc. Think of Headings as a form of Outline.
How to: Headings in Google Docs
In Google Docs, heading structures are found in the Editing Toolbar, under the Heading Menu:
How to: Headings in Microsoft Word
In Word, heading structures are found under the Home > Styles pane. Below are 2 images from different versions of Microsoft Word for Windows.
How to: Mac version of Word Styles Pane
How to: Heading In Drupal
In Drupal, you can find the headings options in your editing toolbar.
