How do I make an accessible Heading and check it with the Accessibility Checker?
You will learn how to organize your Headings, so that they are hierarchical and accessible to your students using a screen reader.
Headings should be hierarchical and concise.
1. Click on Edit for your Page (or any Rich Content Editor).
2. While editing the Page, click on the Accessibility Checker.
3. The Accessibility Checker displays
The Accessibility Checker offers advice on how to change the content in the Rich Content Editor to make it fit accessibility rules.
Frequently, the advice may be quite useful but other times it might not fit what you are trying to do, so you always have to l weigh the advice against what you are trying to convey.
In this case, we need to shorten the heading rather than convert it to a paragraph.
There is a second issue which the Accessibility Checker did not find. Headings must be in hierarchical order starting with the Page title at H1, then the first heading on the page should be H2.
4. Click on the X to close the side window.
5. Select the heading.
6. Type a shorter heading.
The maximum length for a heading is 120 characters. Remember, headings are used by students to scan your document or web page. Students using a screen reader use headings to quickly find the content they need.
7. Click on the Accessibility Checker button
8. The Accessibility Checker states there are no issues.
9. Click on the X.
10. Select the first heading which is an H3.
11. Click on the Heading 3 button.
12. Select 'Heading 2'.
13. The heading structure is now appropriate.
Headings should be hierarchical. The title of the Page is an H1, so the next level heading should be an H2. Both of these headings in this page are H2 because they are considered to be at the same level, but if the second heading is under the umbrella of the H2, then it should be an H3.
14. Click on Save.
Article Summary
You have now learned how to organize your headings, so that they are hierarchical and concise which will allow your students to quickly navigate your instructional content.