Headings and labels: accessibility for web writers, part 10

Write descriptive headings, sub-headings and labels for content. This will help users understand what your content is about, decide if it is relevant and go directly to the information they are looking for.

Descriptive headings and labels are important for people with disabilities. People who read slowly or have problems with short-term memory will benefit from well-labelled chunks of content, rather than having to take in an entire page or article. Vision impaired users of screen reading software will be able to skip to and read each heading to get the gist of the content. Those using screen magnifiers will also be able to get a quicker overview.

Using meaningful headings and labels will also help your search engine ranking, particularly if you use keywords: the terms or phrases your users are likely to search with.

Tips for better headings and labels

• Clearly describe the content or purpose of the page or article in the main heading
• Write sub-headings that describe, summarise or clearly label each part of the page or article
• Avoid teasers or cute, catchy phrasing that may not be clear to all users
• Use keywords or keyword phrases, particularly in the main heading
• Avoid jargon, acronyms and other shortened forms unless they are familiar to your target audience
• Start headings and labels with distinguishing information, so those who only see or listen to the first few words can distinguish it from earlier and later headings
• Take care using questions as headings as they can push distinguishing words away from the start of a heading
• Be concise. Headings that wrap to a second line may be harder for some users to see or understand
• Write in sentence or title case. Uppercase may be harder for some people to read

References: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

• Headings and labels: understanding success criterion 2.4.6
• Providing descriptive headings: technique G130

Earlier articles in this series

• Introduction: accessibility for web writers, part 1
• Text alternatives for images: accessibility for web writers, part 2
• Info and relationships: accessibility for web writers, part 3
• Sensory characteristics: accessibility for web writers, part 4
• Colour: accessibility for web writers, part 5
• Contrast: accessibility for web writers, part 6
• Images of text: accessibility for web writers, part 7
• Page titles: accessibility for web writers, part 8
• Link purpose: accessibility for web writers, part 9

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