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From: Margit Link-Rodrigue
Date: Fri, Aug 27 2010 12:03PM
Subject: Question about use of headings on major news sites
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I am trying to establish best practices for our corporate website, and
thought I would give some extra emphasis to the use of headings. Different
opinions exist about whether it matters not to skip from <h1> headings to
<h3> headings, but content management systems often cause this non-linear
structure.

I figured I'd take a look at how the big news outlets structure their sites
to get some inspiration. However, I am rather surprised at the rather
chaotic use of headings, and it looks to me as if it would be very difficult
for screen reader users to navigate any of those sites.

For example, the Wall Street Journal homepage at
http://online.wsj.com/home-page. Is it even possible for a screen reader
user to find out what the featured news story is? Then, when you start
reading an article, it never has any headings (since all headings seem to be
used up for structuring the page's content areas as distinct sections.) This
seems to be common practice (I checked cnn.com, nyt.com, time.com) - no
sub-headings within articles.

Foxnews.com was the only news site I found that at least sometimes uses
headings in their articles for sighted users. The headings, however, are not
marked up as such. Example: Current fox news cover story at:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/27/katrina-years-hurricane-devastated-political-futures-new-orleans/
.

My question is, how easy or frustrating is it for screen reader users to
navigate any of these news sites? And why don't newspapers use any headings
in general within articles, even if the articles are long? I guess they want
the readers to read the entire article rather than skipping through it?

Thank you,
Margit

From: Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson
Date: Fri, Aug 27 2010 1:18PM
Subject: Re: Question about use of headings on major news sites
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Hi

I will look through some of these sites andgive you feedback.
One thing I want to warn against, in general, is excessive use of
headings. www.bbcnews.com recently updated their outlook and every
newslink is now a level 2 heading. This causes my screen reader to say
"level 2 heading" beore any link is read, unless I mess with the
verbosity settings, and it takes away the main purpose of headings
i.e. to give aquick navigation point to move to for
"skimming"purposes. It is abit like underlining the entire text book
instead of theimportant parts.
I'd like a featured story to be its own heading, I'd like subsections
of the web site (sport, weather, local etc) to have their own
headings, but do not use headings excessively.
Another technique that I, and most web users I know, use to get to the
main story is to use the "n" key of my screen reader, that shows the
first text on the page that is not a link. Many pages are structured
with the main links in a list at the beginning of the page and the
first text that is not a link is the text of the main story.
This does away with the need for a heading in a sense, but not all
users use this and the interpretation of this functionality seem to
vary slightly among the screen readers so it might not be a reliable
technique, at least not consistent.
I know this is not wat you asked for, but please do skip the "click
here to read more" links on every news story. So many online sites do
this and it is extremely frustrating, because if you want to read the
whole story you click on the link with its title.
Also this makes it difficult when you navigate by using Jaws key f7
(or other SR equivalent) to get a list of all links on the page.


On 8/27/10, Margit Link-Rodrigue < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I am trying to establish best practices for our corporate website, and
> thought I would give some extra emphasis to the use of headings. Different
> opinions exist about whether it matters not to skip from <h1> headings to
> <h3> headings, but content management systems often cause this non-linear
> structure.
>
> I figured I'd take a look at how the big news outlets structure their sites
> to get some inspiration. However, I am rather surprised at the rather
> chaotic use of headings, and it looks to me as if it would be very difficult
> for screen reader users to navigate any of those sites.
>
> For example, the Wall Street Journal homepage at
> http://online.wsj.com/home-page. Is it even possible for a screen reader
> user to find out what the featured news story is? Then, when you start
> reading an article, it never has any headings (since all headings seem to be
> used up for structuring the page's content areas as distinct sections.) This
> seems to be common practice (I checked cnn.com, nyt.com, time.com) - no
> sub-headings within articles.
>
> Foxnews.com was the only news site I found that at least sometimes uses
> headings in their articles for sighted users. The headings, however, are not
> marked up as such. Example: Current fox news cover story at:
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/27/katrina-years-hurricane-devastated-political-futures-new-orleans/
> .
>
> My question is, how easy or frustrating is it for screen reader users to
> navigate any of these news sites? And why don't newspapers use any headings
> in general within articles, even if the articles are long? I guess they want
> the readers to read the entire article rather than skipping through it?
>
> Thank you,
> Margit
>

From: Margit Link-Rodrigue
Date: Fri, Aug 27 2010 1:36PM
Subject: Re: Question about use of headings on major news sites
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Birkir, thank you so much for your initial feedback. It already contains a
lot of useful information for me. I feel bad for sending you to the New York
Times website, it uses heading levels much more excessively than BBC. There
are about 200 heading 6 elements on the NYT homepage, can you believe it?

Thanks, Margit

2010/8/27 Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >

> Hi
>
> I will look through some of these sites andgive you feedback.
> One thing I want to warn against, in general, is excessive use of
> headings. www.bbcnews.com recently updated their outlook and every
> newslink is now a level 2 heading. This causes my screen reader to say
> "level 2 heading" beore any link is read, unless I mess with the
> verbosity settings, and it takes away the main purpose of headings
> i.e. to give aquick navigation point to move to for
> "skimming"purposes. It is abit like underlining the entire text book
> instead of theimportant parts.
> I'd like a featured story to be its own heading, I'd like subsections
> of the web site (sport, weather, local etc) to have their own
> headings, but do not use headings excessively.
> Another technique that I, and most web users I know, use to get to the
> main story is to use the "n" key of my screen reader, that shows the
> first text on the page that is not a link. Many pages are structured
> with the main links in a list at the beginning of the page and the
> first text that is not a link is the text of the main story.
> This does away with the need for a heading in a sense, but not all
> users use this and the interpretation of this functionality seem to
> vary slightly among the screen readers so it might not be a reliable
> technique, at least not consistent.
> I know this is not wat you asked for, but please do skip the "click
> here to read more" links on every news story. So many online sites do
> this and it is extremely frustrating, because if you want to read the
> whole story you click on the link with its title.
> Also this makes it difficult when you navigate by using Jaws key f7
> (or other SR equivalent) to get a list of all links on the page.
>
>
> On 8/27/10, Margit Link-Rodrigue < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> > I am trying to establish best practices for our corporate website, and
> > thought I would give some extra emphasis to the use of headings.
> Different
> > opinions exist about whether it matters not to skip from <h1> headings
> to
> > <h3> headings, but content management systems often cause this non-linear
> > structure.
> >
> > I figured I'd take a look at how the big news outlets structure their
> sites
> > to get some inspiration. However, I am rather surprised at the rather
> > chaotic use of headings, and it looks to me as if it would be very
> difficult
> > for screen reader users to navigate any of those sites.
> >
> > For example, the Wall Street Journal homepage at
> > http://online.wsj.com/home-page. Is it even possible for a screen reader
> > user to find out what the featured news story is? Then, when you start
> > reading an article, it never has any headings (since all headings seem to
> be
> > used up for structuring the page's content areas as distinct sections.)
> This
> > seems to be common practice (I checked cnn.com, nyt.com, time.com) - no
> > sub-headings within articles.
> >
> > Foxnews.com was the only news site I found that at least sometimes uses
> > headings in their articles for sighted users. The headings, however, are
> not
> > marked up as such. Example: Current fox news cover story at:
> >
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/27/katrina-years-hurricane-devastated-political-futures-new-orleans/
> > .
> >
> > My question is, how easy or frustrating is it for screen reader users to
> > navigate any of these news sites? And why don't newspapers use any
> headings
> > in general within articles, even if the articles are long? I guess they
> want
> > the readers to read the entire article rather than skipping through it?
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Margit
> >

From: adam solomon
Date: Sun, Aug 29 2010 5:18AM
Subject: Re: Question about use of headings on major news sites
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To the extent that wcag isn't implemented it is that much more difficult to navigate. The most basic (and simplest) accessibility feature to implement is headers. This way, the screen reader can give a sneak preview about the page (by the user listing all the headers) and thus give him half a chance to know what to expect. News outlets don't implement wcag for one simple reason - they don't have to legally. They don't want to invest money for a small number of screen reader users. The only thing that will change that is bad PR - the more it is pointed out publicly the greater chance of change. Extra emphasis should be given to have a header for each section of the page.

> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:01:18 -0500
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Subject: [WebAIM] Question about use of headings on major news sites
>
> I am trying to establish best practices for our corporate website, and
> thought I would give some extra emphasis to the use of headings. Different
> opinions exist about whether it matters not to skip from <h1> headings to
> <h3> headings, but content management systems often cause this non-linear
> structure.
>
> I figured I'd take a look at how the big news outlets structure their sites
> to get some inspiration. However, I am rather surprised at the rather
> chaotic use of headings, and it looks to me as if it would be very difficult
> for screen reader users to navigate any of those sites.
>
> For example, the Wall Street Journal homepage at
> http://online.wsj.com/home-page. Is it even possible for a screen reader
> user to find out what the featured news story is? Then, when you start
> reading an article, it never has any headings (since all headings seem to be
> used up for structuring the page's content areas as distinct sections.) This
> seems to be common practice (I checked cnn.com, nyt.com, time.com) - no
> sub-headings within articles.
>
> Foxnews.com was the only news site I found that at least sometimes uses
> headings in their articles for sighted users. The headings, however, are not
> marked up as such. Example: Current fox news cover story at:
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/27/katrina-years-hurricane-devastated-political-futures-new-orleans/
> .
>
> My question is, how easy or frustrating is it for screen reader users to
> navigate any of these news sites? And why don't newspapers use any headings
> in general within articles, even if the articles are long? I guess they want
> the readers to read the entire article rather than skipping through it?
>
> Thank you,
> Margit
>