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Re: Document headings

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From: Dax Castro
Date: Feb 27, 2024 6:49AM

100% concur with Duff on this topic.
In fact often we see the title as an H1 followed by an arbitrary H2 for a byline or subtext just because it is large and bold. Remember that heading structure is designed to organize content and is not purely based on text size.

Dax Castro, ADS

Thanks,
Dax
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > on behalf of Duff Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2024 5:31:07 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Document headings

A document is NOT obligated to start with its title. This is not a “compliance” issue but (at most) a question of best-practice for some classes of documents. Your QA office hasn’t done anything wrong.

Related observation: HTML is unfortunate in that the <title> element is abstracted from the <body>, which has resulted in the notion that titles should be marked as <h1>.

Other technologies (e.g., PDF 2.0) provide both <Title> and <H#> elements. So, in PDF, one is not compelled to “spend” H1 on the title (thus reducing the available heading-levels for the document as a whole), but can use H# for its true semantic intent - headings.

Duff Johnson
PDF Association

> On Feb 27, 2024, at 6:30 AM, Claire Forbes < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> Good morning,
> I have a question regarding Heading Levels, please see the below for context and I'll ask my question at the end.
>
> I created a one-page document that flowed with the following document styles:
>
> * The document title as a Heading Level 1 <H1>
> * Then a Paragraph of content <P>
> * Then goes into a Heading Level 2 + the next section of content <H2> <P>
> * The rest of the document goes from various <H2> to <P> until the end
> The document title is also in the header and the company logo is in the footer.
>
> Our QA office reviewed the document and removed the document title as Heading Level 1, started the document with a paragraph of instruction, then made all my original Heading Level 2s into Heading Level 1s.
> So here's the QA's document structure: <P>, <H1>, <P>, <P>,<P>,<H1>, <P>, <P>, <H1>, <P>, etc....
>
> Can someone please confirm this is non-complaint? A document should always start with an <H1> and not a <P>, correct?
> Just because the document title is in the header of the document that's not a case for compliance because screen readers don't read headers and footers, correct?
>
> Thank you!