Action Item H69

 

I had an action item to combine the existing H69 with the description text
I had previously proposed for H42. Here is the proposal which would be the
new description of H69... some 

Description 

The objective of this technique is to use section headings to convey the
structure of the content, and to create chunks of information that can be
found easily by people with disabilities, such as a blind person using a
screen reader, or a person with a cognitive disability who uses assistive
technology that delineates groups of information, or someone with a
communication disability or illiteracy, who uses a screen reader to assist
them in their reading. Since headings indicate the start of important
sections of content, it is possible for users with assistive technology to
jump directly to the appropriate heading and begin reading the content.
This significantly speeds interaction for users who would otherwise access
the content slowly. Heading markup can be used to: 

  * indicate start of main content
  * mark up section headings within the main content area
  * demarcate different navigational sections like top or main navigation,
left or secondary navigation and footer navigation
  * markup images (containing text) which have the appearance of headings
visually.

In (X)HTML, headings are designed to convey logical hierarchy. Skipping
levels in the sequence of headings may create the impression that the
structure of the document has not been properly thought through or that
specific headings have been chosen for their visual rendering rather than
their meaning. Authors are encouraged to nest headings hierarchically
where the most important information is given the highest logical level,
and subsections are given subsequent logical levels.(i.e., h2 is a
subsection of h1).  

If the generic visual presentation of a particular heading level is not
what is desired by the author (e.g., font size), Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) can be used to change the way headings look or sound. It is even
possible to style headings using CSS so that they are exposed to assistive
technology but are hidden from view visually. However, showing the headings
visually benefits a wider set of users, including those with some cognitive
disabilities. Be sure not to use CSS to mark up the 

 tag to look like a heading, because although it would visually look like
a heading, assitive technology would not recognize it as such. Also, do
not use heading markup to style text that is not a heading, because this
would  

Add to related techniques 

F2: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 due to using changes in text
presentation to convey information without using the appropriate markup or
text