WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Heading structure

for

From: Maupin, Brennan Polaris McCaffrey - maupinbp
Date: Mar 11, 2019 9:27AM

Mark, I'm experiencing the same thing! The good news is that headings are encouraged for search engine optimization. The bad news is that people don't necessarily know how use them correctly or the CMS has a preset heading level depending on the type of widget or content block they are creating.

Jim, personally, my next step is to contact IT once I build my case and see if it is possible to allow content creators to manually specify heading level in whatever widget or content block they are creating. I don't know out CMS on the back-end so I am not sure if this is possible, but I am hoping so.

-Brennan Maupin

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Jim Homme
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 11:22 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Heading structure

Hi,
I wonder if you would be able to override what your CMS does by using ARIA to adjust heading levels, but this might open up some tricky issues.

Thanks.

Jim



==========
Jim Homme
Digital Accessibility
Bender Consulting Services
412-787-8567
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.benderconsult.com_our-2520services_hightest-2Daccessible-2Dtechnology-2Dsolutions&d=DwIFAw&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=tzjt3_Kd4qvmdydGF10YVA&m=pyWMsgtbWugT7p80FymihsIf8_Ep2zD9t-ukCbCjVQc&s=5_xBvaKyZI6wVsihzXMdMgUK_yugCI77w7wthciNXOA&e=

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Greenfield, Mark
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 11:03 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Heading structure

The biggest challenge I see with heading structure is the fundamental approach used by most CMS's. The page is no longer the "atom" or smallest component of the web. Pages now consist of modules, widgets, or components that authors can place most anywhere on a page. Most of these components should have a header, and this creates challenges for nesting headings. I'd love to hear how others approach this challenge. (The primary CMS on our campus is Adobe Experience Manager)

Mark

Mark A. Greenfield
Web Accessibility Officer
Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
416 Capen Hall
State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo, N.Y.  14260
telephone: (716)645-2811
e-mail:  <EMAIL REMOVED>



-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Swift, Daniel P.
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 10:51 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Heading structure

Brennan:

I feel your pain. The people that maintain our content are highly decentralized. In order for people to gain access to our CMS, we require them to attend a training. While they do have the ability to choose different headers and potentially create havoc, we give them the foundation for why they shouldn't do that. We stress the importance of maintaining a homogenous site and citing ADA. Every once in a while, we find people using the headers a little too liberally. For the most part, they adhere to the rules. Again, I've found that giving people the "why" reason has helped us tremendously over the years.

Good luck!

Dan Swift
Senior Web Specialist
Enterprise Services
West Chester University
610.738.0589

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Maupin, Brennan Polaris McCaffrey - maupinbp
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 10:23 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Heading structure

Great point Dan. I agree with you completely, and if I were designing a webpage I would likely do it this way.

My problem is that I am working with a very dispersed group of web content creators for the same base website. When they work with the web design service, they have control of the headings on their own content, but for shared content of the whole website such as footers and headers, those headings are default and preset. I've found that these content creators use their pages *vastly* different from one another, which is another issue haha.

Thanks,
-Brennan

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Swift, Daniel P.
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 9:58 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Heading structure

Brennan:

I'm a strong proponent of headers always being in order and sequential. In my opinion, if situations arise that cause a disconnect between look and feel and consistency, such as in Glen's example, then the coding and content needs to be reevaluated. That's just my opinion though.

Dan Swift
Senior Web Specialist
Enterprise Services
West Chester University
610.738.0589

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Maupin, Brennan Polaris McCaffrey - maupinbp
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2019 9:03 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Heading structure

I've been running into this a lot personally. I also have been focusing on 1.3.1 compliance when I tell people around me that it is an issue.

My problem is that, depending on how your website is made and managed, web content creators will may heading levels based off of their visual appearance rather than page structure.

When I justify heading levels to people I cite guideline 141 which states that "To facilitate navigation and understanding of overall document structure, authors should use headings that are properly nested (e.g., h1 followed by h2, h2 followed by h2 or h3, h3 followed by h3 or h4, etc.)." [1]

An important note that is in line with Glen's comments; their tutorial [2] reinforces that headings should be in order, but states that "In fixed sections of the page, for example in sidebars, the heading ranks should not change depending on the ranks in the content area. In those cases, consistency across pages is more important."

Someone tell me if I am wrong, (I am new to this,) but I typically feel that if someone is using headings out of order for *main content* on a page, as opposed to elements that are consistent to a set of pages (e.g. navigation bar, sidebar, contact info), in such cases the headings should be fixed. Is that in line with what you all practice?

Brennan

[1] https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.w3.org_TR_WCAG20-2DTECHS_G141.html&d=DwICAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=tzjt3_Kd4qvmdydGF10YVA&m=WklMV2ouFiGhIZIXFPHhSgOjq_fQlH2dAdVQeYohSzI&s=MVZjICvhOKpoyrDgb91L8iFc5wlZ-jODXfwIZl8qTac&e=
[2] https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.w3.org_WAI_tutorials_page-2Dstructure_headings_&d=DwICAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=tzjt3_Kd4qvmdydGF10YVA&m=WklMV2ouFiGhIZIXFPHhSgOjq_fQlH2dAdVQeYohSzI&s=5QL8uwhYoPRrW8MDIbjh9FHnkKPyuCH_OtWzjsXpXgM&e=


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of glen walker
Sent: Saturday, March 9, 2019 11:17 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Heading structure

I agree with Patrick on 1.3.1 but be careful that you don't automatically flag an error just because the heading levels aren't in order. 1.3.1 just says you can determine the "structure, and relationships". It doesn't say the headings must be in order (although that's generally the recommendation).

I've seen pages where an H1 is not the first heading on a page (in the DOM) but it made perfect sense so wasn't an error. I believe it had something to do with the H1 in the <main> but the <header> or left <nav> had a sub-heading in it.

And sometimes skipping a level is ok too. If you have a common pattern on your pages where you have H1-H3 on the main part of the page then H4 in the footer, but then you have a page that doesn't have as much info so it only has H1 and H2, the footer should still be H4 so that it's consistent with the other pages. You skipped H3 but that's ok. Again, the "structure, and relationships" are understood so it passes 1.3.1.

Glen