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Number of posts in this thread: 16 (In chronological order)

From: allyssa jessicon
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 5:16AM
Subject: Heading without contents
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Hello everyone,

A very good morning and happy new year 2023.

Let me go straight into the question. Suppose if there is a heading
but there is no content below it and the heading is also an h1, the
top-level heading in the page. I believe this is not a good practice
to have a heading without any content below it. Do I sound reasonable?
and avoiding heading without content below it is a best practice?

Appreciate each opinion and corrections.


Regards,
Alysa.

From: Mark Magennis
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 5:27AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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I agree with you. This could be confusing. It could confuse sighted users who may wonder why the content is missing. It could confuse screen reader users even more because they may wonder whether the content is missing or whether it is there but just not being read by the screen reader. I would suggest a text para saying there is no information available but as specific as possible, e.g. "there are no employment records for this employee".

Mark

From: Swift, Daniel P.
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 5:51AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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I'sll add to this in saying that (IMO) it would make sense if the H1 is immediately followed by an H2. I could envision a scenario where the H1 is the name of the organization and the H2 might be something like “Current Employment Opportunities”.

Daniel Swift, MBA
Director of Web Communications
University Communications and Marketing
West Chester University
610.738.0589

From: WebAIM-Forum < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > On Behalf Of Mark Magennis
Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2023 7:28 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] [EXTERNAL] Heading without contents

I agree with you. This could be confusing. It could confuse sighted users who may wonder why the content is missing. It could confuse screen reader users even more because they may wonder whether the content is missing or whether it is there but just not being read by the screen reader. I would suggest a text para saying there is no information available but as specific as possible, e.g. "there are no employment records for this employee".

Mark

From: Karen McCall
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 6:35AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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On the other hand, you might have an H1 on one page to introduce a chapter and the chapter content begins on the next page. I've seen this frequently in reports and publications. The heading is on a page of its own and the content begins on the next page. The content can start with a paragraph or another heading/H2.

I'm reading a technical manual at the moment that is structured this way.

It depends on the design of the publication and that each chapter title is on its own page. There would be a consistency to the layout/structure of the publication.

As someone using adaptive technology, a screen reader, I would be able to move from that heading 1 to the next piece of content easily in the document.

Cheers, Karen

From: allyssa jessicon
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 6:48AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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Thanks for the quick responses. Missed to add, the h1 is a hidden heading.

On 1/4/23, Karen McCall < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> On the other hand, you might have an H1 on one page to introduce a chapter
> and the chapter content begins on the next page. I've seen this frequently
> in reports and publications. The heading is on a page of its own and the
> content begins on the next page. The content can start with a paragraph or
> another heading/H2.
>
> I'm reading a technical manual at the moment that is structured this way.
>
> It depends on the design of the publication and that each chapter title is
> on its own page. There would be a consistency to the layout/structure of the
> publication.
>
> As someone using adaptive technology, a screen reader, I would be able to
> move from that heading 1 to the next piece of content easily in the
> document.
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>

From: Mark Magennis
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 7:03AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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If the only thing on the page is a chapter title then it isn't a heading. It may be a 'heading' in the context of the publication but it isn't a heading in the context of the page content, so it shouldn't be marked up as an HTML heading.

From: Karen McCall
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 7:29AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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It is a navigational point and therefore can be a heading. If I want it in a TOC or want to navigate to a specific chapter, I can easily do so by marking the chapter title as a heading.

Cheers, Karen

From: Sandy Feldman
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 7:50AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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I think using <hgroup> might help here, but I'm not sure. Is it helpful
to screen reader users?

https://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-html5-author-20110809/the-hgroup-element.html

It looks it's supported by modern browsers

https://caniuse.com/?search=%3Chgroup%3E


Sandy

https://sandyfeldman.com
https://www.a11yready.com


On 2023-01-04 7:27 a.m., Mark Magennis wrote:
> I agree with you. This could be confusing. It could confuse sighted users who may wonder why the content is missing. It could confuse screen reader users even more because they may wonder whether the content is missing or whether it is there but just not being read by the screen reader. I would suggest a text para saying there is no information available but as specific as possible, e.g. "there are no employment records for this employee".
>
> Mark
>
>

From: Karen McCall
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 7:58AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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Apologies, I thought we were talking about a document not a web page.

Cheers, Karen

From: Mark Magennis
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 7:58AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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I feel we may be talking at cross purposes because I'm not sure I follow your example. A TOC entry can be a link to the chapter page whether or not the chapter title is marked up as a heading.

Headings are structural elements providing a meaningful title for a block content on a page. If there is no content then there should be no heading because there's nothing to head.

I may be misunderstanding you here.

From: chagnon
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 3:28PM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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Quote: I believe this is not a good practice to have a heading without any content below it. EndQuote

Generally, yes.
But what you described is lower-level content (the H2) following the H1. So the H1 does indeed have content — another heading level and its content. Your H1 is not empty.

This is a very common construction in structured documents.
Yes, it can be confusing to some screen-reader users, but it's not illogical nor incorrect.

— — —
Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
— — —
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
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US Delegate to the ISO committees for the PDF and PDF/UA standards

From: chagnon
Date: Wed, Jan 04 2023 3:35PM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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In HTML, agree. A single webpage is an individual document.

But in PDF and Word documents, the entire file is the document, and it is correct to have only a heading on a page.

Another example where HTML and PDF/Word documents are different animals with different requirements.

— — —
Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
— — —
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
— — —
US Delegate to the ISO committees for PDF and PDF/UA standards

From: Dave Comeau
Date: Thu, Jan 05 2023 7:24AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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To follow up on Bevi's point, another important concept in accessible PDF files is that are meant to be tagged in way that presents them as one continuous stream of content. This means there should be no concept of pages to a screen reader that is reading a PDF file, it should be a similar experience to reading one long HTML page.

Text content like "Page 1 of 10" should be tagged as pagination artifacts and not read by the screen reader.

So, if a page has a single H1 only it may be setting up a paragraph or other content that occurs on the next physical page.
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Sent: January 4, 2023 5:35 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List' < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] [EXTERNAL] Heading without contents

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In HTML, agree. A single webpage is an individual document.

But in PDF and Word documents, the entire file is the document, and it is correct to have only a heading on a page.

Another example where HTML and PDF/Word documents are different animals with different requirements.

— — —
Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
— — —
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.PubCom.com/classes__;!!Obbck6kTJA!ZimfhHfF_nt6wT5cRcBkMZBGas_mCEh8d1uiZ6oNZNDK5ccbPWKYi7vzZ4E1PfWUFnsPjjLNiuVKjIG8$
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US Delegate to the ISO committees for PDF and PDF/UA standards

From: Karen McCall
Date: Thu, Jan 05 2023 7:35AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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To follow up on the issue of where to put page numbers in a PDF, as it was mentioned in the previous post...

Use Page Labels in the PDF document to identify the page numbers. This gives you the flexibility to identify Roman Numeral page numbers as well as the start of the document (page 1) if there are preface pages. Both JAWS and NVDA have keyboard commands to read the page numbers if Page Labels are implemented.

If they are not implemented (in Acrobat), the screen readers won't render a page number and if someone uses Ctrl + Shift + N to go to a specific page, they may get an error message saying the page is not found.

Page Labels avoid the necessity of figuring out where to put the page number if it is in the middle of a paragraph or if a table or list spans multiple pages. These elements aren't broken to provide page number information when Page Labels are used.

Cheers, Karen

From: chagnon
Date: Thu, Jan 05 2023 9:56AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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The Page Labels that Karen refers to can be seen in Acrobat's Page Thumnails panel. They are below the thumbnail, and assistive technologies can access them.

They should always match the visible "printed" page number of the PDF document.

— — —
Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
— — —
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
— — —
Latest blog-newsletter – Simple Guide to Writing Alt-Text

From: allyssa jessicon
Date: Fri, Jan 06 2023 5:06AM
Subject: Re: Heading without contents
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As far as I understand is what my concern is right. I would also like
to know if this has been mentioned anywhere in WCAG as a violation or
a best practice not to have heading alone without any content below
it.

Much appreciated all your responses.

On 1/5/23, = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> The Page Labels that Karen refers to can be seen in Acrobat's Page Thumnails
> panel. They are below the thumbnail, and assistive technologies can access
> them.
>
> They should always match the visible "printed" page number of the PDF
> document.
>
> — — —
> Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> — — —
> PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
> consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
> Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
> — — —
> Latest blog-newsletter – Simple Guide to Writing Alt-Text
>
>