Common Course Recommendations: Use Headings!
As instructional designers, we view a lot of courses. One of the most common recommendations that I find myself making to clients is a simple one–use headings! Quite often, we see headings that are “created” by changing the font size, making the text bold, or changing the font colour. While this might make it look like a heading, it is not quite the same as actually using headings throughout your pages. So what’s the difference?
What is a heading?
Headings are tags that provide structure and organization to a page. There are a series of heading tags that you can use, going from an H1 (the largest heading, which is usually used for the page title) to H2 (used for major section headings), H3 (used for sub-topics or sub-sections), etc, all the way through to H6. In the Brightspace Editor, there is a formatting area where you can easily select the appropriate heading level for your content.
Why should I use headings?
Headings bring structure to your page and your content, both visually and for navigation. Using different headings implies an order to the page–it tells your learner where to start and helps to chunk your content. Let’s say you have a page about ice cream. On that page, you could make an H2 heading called Types of Ice Cream with an introduction paragraph below it, and then a few H3s (like Chocolate, Vanilla, and Bubble Gum) with content like paragraphs and images below each one. With that structure, your learner will be able to visually understand that chocolate, vanilla, and bubble gum are all related to the broader heading of Types of Ice Cream, rather than entirely new topics.
Headings aren’t just visually important, though. Assistive technology makes use of headings to help learners navigate through the page. Screen readers will create an outline of the page based on the headings, which enables learners to navigate directly to the section they need, and gives them an overall sense of the content on the page, its structure, and how it flows together. If your text is just bolded, a screen reader won’t register that there is a hierarchy to the page and won’t be able to create that outline.
Tips for Using Headings
- Start each page with an H1 for the page title.
- Use the headings in order – start with an H1, then use an H2, etc. Heading order must be sequential to meet accessibility standards.
- Don’t skip heading levels – going from an H1 to an H4 can be confusing. Go through them in order.
- However, you can go from an H5 back to an H2 if it makes sense with the content, such as starting a new section.
- Select a heading level that makes logical sense with the content structure, rather than selecting based on visual appearance.
- Use headings purposefully – consider where you need to break content into sections and what makes sense with your content. Don’t use a heading just for the sake of using a heading.
- Keep it short and sweet! You want headings to be recognizable as headings, so avoid headings that span multiple lines or are multiple sentences.
Checking Accessibility
Good news! Brightspace has an Accessibility Checker to help you make sure all of your content is designed accessibly, including your headings. For more information, check out:
Sources
Reacties
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On pages in Brightspace, the title of the page starts at H1. When we add content to said page, we always start at H2.
