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Re: [EXTERNAL] heading question

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From: Mark Magennis
Date: Dec 16, 2019 3:27AM

Great to hear results from real user testing Steve. Your experience that users rarely take notice of the heading level is really useful information.

It seems a bit at odds with the findings from the latest WebAIM screen reader survey though (note that the WebAIM survey is based on an uncontrolled sample, I don't know about your testing). WebAIM asked "When navigating a web page by headings, how useful are the heading levels (e.g., "Heading 1", "Heading 2", etc.) to you?".

52.2% said heading levels are "Very useful" and 33.9% "Somewhat useful". Only 11% said "Not very useful" or "Not at all useful".

As an aside, I note that the WebAIM survey indicates that use of headings has increased over the years. The numbers of respondents reporting that they use headings as their first approach to finding information on a lengthy page has increased as follows. 2009=50.8%, 2012=60.8%, 2014=65.6%, 2017=67.5%, 2019=68.8% .

Mark

Mark Magennis
Skillsoft | mobile: +353 87 60 60 162
Accessibility Specialist