Accessibility. Use Headings to Show Hierarchical Relationships of Content

Use Headings to Show Hierarchical Relationships of Content

Headings (h1 through h6 elements) are workhorse tags that help provide structure and labeling to your content. Screen readers can be set to read only the headings on a page so the user gets a summary. This means it is important for the heading tags in your markup to have semantic meaning and relate to each other, not be picked merely for their size values.

 

Semantic meaning means that the tag you use around content indicates the type of information it contains.

 

If you were writing a paper with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, it wouldn't make much sense to put the conclusion as a subsection of the body in your outline. It should be its own section. Similarly, the heading tags in a webpage need to go in order and indicate the hierarchical relationships of your content.

 

Headings with equal (or higher) rank start new implied sections, headings with lower rank start subsections of the previous one.

 

As an example, a page with an h2 element followed by several subsections labeled with h4 tags would confuse a screen reader user. With six choices, it's tempting to use a tag because it looks better in a browser, but you can use CSS to edit the relative sizing.

 

One final point, each page should always have one (and only one) h1 element, which is the main subject of your content. This and the other headings are used in part by search engines to understand the topic of the page.

 

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Camper Cat wants a page on his site dedicated to becoming a ninja. Help him fix the headings so his markup gives semantic meaning to the content, and shows the proper parent-child relationships of his sections. Change all the h5 tags to the proper heading level to indicate they are subsections of the h2 ones. Use h3 tags for the purpose.

 

 

 

 

<h1>How to Become a Ninja</h1>
<main>
  <h2>Learn the Art of Moving Stealthily</h2>
  <h3>How to Hide in Plain Sight</h3>
  <h3>How to Climb a Wall</h3>

  <h2>Learn the Art of Battle</h2>
  <h3>How to Strengthen your Body</h3>
  <h3>How to Fight like a Ninja</h3>

  <h2>Learn the Art of Living with Honor</h2>
  <h3>How to Breathe Properly</h3>
  <h3>How to Simplify your Life</h3>
</main>