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Re: Reference to not add formatting attributes to Heading tags

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From: Dave Comeau
Date: May 2, 2022 1:02PM

I think PDF/UA-2 is planning to relax the strict rules around skipping heading levels, so it should be consistent with WCAG....recommended best practice, but not required.

DC
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > on behalf of Laura Roberts < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: April 30, 2022 9:07 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] [EXTERNAL] Re: Reference to not add formatting attributes to Heading tags

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It's interesting that skipping heading levels will fail PAC3 in a PDF, but
not WCAG (although it is strongly discouraged).

On Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 2:03 PM glen walker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> Mark, that's an interesting situation. I understand the desire to have
> consistent heading levels and the last troubleshooting section is indeed at
> an h3 level compared to the other h3s, but I would probably make *all* the
> troubleshooting sections h4s so that I can always find them using the '4'
> screen reader shortcut key, even if that means a heading level is skipped
> (an h2 followed by an h4). That's just a personal choice but I would find
> it easier to use the '4' shortcut to find a troubleshooting section then
> use Shift+H to hear the heading that is immediately previous to the
> troubleshooting section so that I have context.
>
> But to address JoAnn's original question, I agree with Patrick that, in
> general, <strong> or <em> can be used in a heading without any trouble and
> I have never heard that it shouldn't be done. But I presume the text you
> want to emphasize with <strong> has a particular meaning? That is, you
> want to emphasize part of the heading more than the other parts of the
> heading? Depending on *why* you want to emphasize part of it, you might
> have to convey that same importance to assistive technology too. While
> <strong> is a semantic element, by default, a screen reader doesn't do
> anything special with it so the user might not know it's there. The user
> can certainly turn on formatting options with the screen reader so that
> changes in fonts can be announced, but I don't know how often that's done.
>
> I hate the "it depends" answers but that seems to apply here. It depends
> on why you want to emphasize part of the heading.
>
> <h2>some heading text <strong>that is really important</strong> that you
> should pay attention to</h2>
>
> <h2>some heading text <span class="sr-only">(please read carefully)</span>
> <strong>that is really important</strong> that you should pay attention
> to</h2>
>
> The second example tries to convey the importance with screen reader text
> but you almost need an "important text starts here" and an "end of
> important text" segment.
>
> But maybe that will spark some ideas.
> > > > >