Techniques

Use the styles panel to specify the correct headings in your content

The currently applied heading style is indicated at the top and highlighted in the list; clicking on a different style will change the heading style of the selected text.

Check your heading structure at a glance

Use the document map in the “Navigation Pane” (“View” menu; tick “Navigation Page”) to see the structure of the headings in your document."

Word’s navigation pane, showing the heading structure

The Word application with the navigation pane open, showing a heirarchical list of every heading and highlighting the currently selected heading.
Figure 1

Example of good practice

The screenshot below shows the layout of this page with headings specified. You can easily identify the different sections and sub-sections of the page at a glance.

The content on this page with headers specified.
Figure 2

Example of bad practice

The screenshot below shows the layout of this page without any headings specified. It is difficult to identify the different sections and sub-sections of the page.

.The content on this page without headers specified.
Figure 3

Videos

References

WCAG 2.1

  • 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A)

EN 301 549 v 2.1.2

  • 9.1.3.1 Info and Relationships

Further reading