Drupal: Use Headings for Page Sections

Accessibility Requirements

  • Accessible formatting is used by visitors with a text-to-speech software called a Screen Reader in order to quickly navigate to any section of the page. Typically, the first Heading 1 is read, followed by a list of any Heading 2.

  • This saves time for the user of a screen reader by skipping all the Normal Paragraph content in each section of the page because they can navigate by only listening to the Heading 2 being read out for each page section.

Text Formatting menu in Drupal Toolbar

Heading styles menu
Heading styles menu

Paragraph format:

All body text should be set to use Paragraph. You may add additional formats for bold, italic, bulleted and numbered text, etc.

Our web pages must meet this Accessibility* formatting requirement:

  • To divide up a page into manageable and logical page sections, please use Heading 2 as the default/primary Heading style for each section of a page.

  • Only use Heading 3, 4, 5 as sub-section headings, following the same pattern as a standard outline in MS Word.

  • Headings 2-5 should not be bolded using the Drupal Toolbar tool.

  • Please don't use a bolded Body Normal paragraph as a section heading.

  • Heading 1 is reserved for the Page Title only (and formatted automatically).

Example of Page Section Headings:

Examples of Heading levels
Examples of Heading levels