Headings and Heading Levels

Module 7.1.1: Headings and Heading Levels

Once you have determined that heading navigation might help you out, press H to go to the next heading and Shift H to go to the previous one. If you navigate through all the headings on a page, this can give you a quick general idea of what information may be accessed on that page. If you Down arrow to read by line under the heading, you may hear a sentence or two expanding a bit on what the heading is all about. A well -designed page will have consistent information under each heading. As you move through the headings, you may hear that some of them are also links, indicating that you can press Enter to open another page related to that topic. Press Enter on one of these links to open a new page. Heading levels may also help you understand a web pages organization and logical hierarchy if the web developer has correctly structured it, as well as quickly find content. Web pages can have up to six heading levels. Navigate levels by pressing the heading level number key on the number row of your keyboard. Press one on the number row for level one headings, two for level two headings, and so on. If you press 3 to jump to a level 3 heading, you will first hear the level 1 and level 2 headings that precede it in the headings hierarchy. This can aid in providing context, as well as make navigation more efficient. For example, the four heading levels on the website of a restaurant we often go to are: Level 1: Name of the restaurant. Level 2: Dinner menu. Level 3: Food categories (appetizers, main courses, desserts, etc.) Level4: Specific dishes within the categories. This web page has over 150 headings. Without a logical hierarchy, understanding how information was presented would be confusing, and navigation would be inefficient. If we want to quickly jump to the dessert choices, we can press 3 just a few times, as opposed to pressing H over 100 times. Once you understand this logical structure, you may not want to hear the full text of the preceding higher heading levels. With JAWS, you can eliminate this verbosity. On well-designed websites, navigating to a level one heading immediately brings you to that page’s main content: for example, the headline of a news article. If you discover that navigating to a level one heading works on one page, it will almost always work on that site’s other pages too.