School of Professional Studies Office of Distance Learning

This page is related to Accessibility

At a Glance

Headings break up text into manageable chunks and help students find relevant information quickly. Whether using a screen reader to jump from heading to heading or visually skimming over a page, headings are like signposts in your text, guiding students to the pieces they need.

Headings

The most important thing to remember with headings is that they must be used in appropriate, descending order. The first heading is Heading 1, any subheads under that are Heading 2, any subheads under that are Heading 3, and so on. Think of headings like a bulleted list: you should be able to lift them out of the page and have an outline of your content. For example:

In Canvas, the page title is always Heading 1, so the first heading you should use when adding text in the Rich Text Editor is Heading 2. You can use Pope Tech to quickly check your heading outline and make necessary changes. Pope Tech will also flag any potential issues with your headings, such as skipped heading levels or a lack of heading tags on a page. Check this page on Headings on the Digital Accessibility website to see a video demo.

In Microsoft Word, you can use the Styles ribbon to add headings to your content. In Google Docs, the dropdown menu that defaults to “Normal text” is where you find the heading options.
Headings should also be unique and informative, giving students an idea of what content follows the heading. As you can see from the example above, that doesn’t mean they have to be lengthy! They just need to give students some context for what the heading’s section is all about.

White Space

Lengthy blocks of text can be tiring for anyone to read, but they present additional challenges for print-disabled people. A user with ADHD, for example, might struggle to find their place again when their attention wanders from a large, unbroken wall of text.

By using headings and white space, which is simply breaking up paragraphs into smaller chunks with an empty line between, a lengthy page of text can become much easier to read. If a student loses their place, they can either find the right heading or skim the start of each paragraph until they get back to where they were, instead of having to re-read the same lengthy block of text multiple times. There’s no automated check for white space, but you can use your best judgment—or look at pages like this one for examples of how to break up text into smaller blocks!

Conclusion

Using headings and whitespace effectively enhances web page accessibility by guiding students to relevant sections and breaking up lengthy text blocks. Headings should follow a logical order and be informative, while whitespace helps maintain focus and reduces cognitive load. Together, these strategies improve readability and create a more inclusive learning environment.