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Re: Heading order

for

From: Chaals McCathie Nevile
Date: Sep 30, 2015 8:39AM

On Tue, 29 Sep 2015 19:32:58 +0200, Jonathan Avila
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

>> We have encountered several instances of improper heading order (e.g.
>> an <h4> above an <h3>), but we can't seem to find a firm agreement as
>> to a) whether
>
> The deciding factor is whether the missing or incorrect order correctly
> communicates information and relationships that are communicated
> visually. So, an h2 used with a navigation bar used before the main h1
> of a page would not in my opinion fail WCAG. However, if an h4 was used
> before an h3 but visually communicated that it was a lesser importance
> or lower in the structure than that would be a failure.

That assumes that your information is presented in such a way that the
main headline comes first.

That is the most common way to do things, and there are good reasons for a
"pyramid" style where you start with a headline, but there are real use
cases for beginning with something that isn't the most important element.

On the other hand, if you are using e.g. h4 but presenting it visually as
something more important that what is represented in h3, I think you're
pretty clearly doing the wrong thing - not just for accessibility but HTML
in general.

> Best Regards,
>
> Jonathan
>
> --Jonathan AvilaChief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART <EMAIL REMOVED>
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