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Headings

Headings need to be clear and descriptive and follow the correct hierarchy. This helps people find the information they seek more easily and they'll be able to understand the relationship between different parts of content. 

Headings that are correctly marked up and meaningful when read out of context help people who use a screen reader. For example, in an automatically generated list of headings/table of contents, or when jumping from heading to heading within a page. 

When adding headings to a page:

  • Do not use Heading 1 unless the page doesn't have one already. Heading 1's are used for page titles and are usaully already present on the page. 
  • Do not skip headings. There are 6 heading levels that can be used. The example below shows correct and incorrect uagage of heading levels. The incorrect example, misses Heading 3 and therefore has skipped a heading level. 
    Correct usage = Heading 2 > Heading 2 > Heading 3 > Heading 2
    Incorrect usgae = Heading 2 > Heading 2 > Heading 4

This achieves WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 2.4.6 Heading and Lables and 1.2.2 Info and Relationships.