DISTANCE LEARNING
Heading Structure Guidance to Make Content Better & Accessible
Author: Lisa Nielsen
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Proper heading structure not only helps to make content accessible, it also helps to make content better for everyone.
Here’s why content is better with headings
Structure
Headings allow those visiting your content to see the structure more easily. It allows screen readers to identify the structure and read it aloud.
Table of Contents
When you create proper heading structure, it automatically generates a table of contents that you can insert into your document.
Outline
When you use heading structure, in Google docs, it creates a handy, dandy outline view in your document.
Hyperlinks
In Google docs, every heading has its own hyperlink. This makes it super easy to link someone to a specific section of your content.
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| This is what happens in Google Docs when using headings. |
Heading basics
Heading 1
Heading 1 is the heading for the page. It often is also the title of the page and tells users what the page is about.
Heading 2
Heading 2 helps organize content into sections.
Heading 3 and beyond
Heading 3 down to heading 6 are subsections of the prior heading. A subsection of heading 2 would be heading 3. A subsection of heading 3 is heading 4. This goes all the way to heading 6.
It’s important to keep your headings in chronological order. Never skip a heading.
Learn more about accessible content
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide detailed information on how to create accessible content in a number of ways. Visit the guidelines to learn more about the guidelines in general or headings in particular.