Creating Headings

Breaking page content down into bite-sized, readable pieces—or what we often call "chunking content"—goes hand-in-hand with good heading structure. Adding headings is one of the simplest yet most helpful ways you can make a course more accessible. Headings are crucial for screen reader users, and they play a role in helping everyone understand content.

Screen readers will only recognize true HTML headings, text that is surrounded by heading tags like <h1> and <h2> , not headings that are just visually styled with bold or enlarged text. Using various heading levels also provides readers with an outline of the page and helps to establish relationships between different pieces of content.

Headings in Evolution

Figure 1 shows where the heading options are located in the Simple Editor. For complete documentation on Evolution styles and options, please visit the Styles section of WCLD 101.

Please note that <h1> and <h2> tags should not be used on Evolution content pages because they are reserved for the course title and page title. See the following Headings Structure page for more information.

Headings in Canvas

In Canvas, the page title is automatically designated as an <h1> so the first heading you create within the Rich Content Editor (RCE) should be an <h2>. In Figure 2 for example, the page title "Headings Example" is an <h1>, so the first level available to choose for the page content is Header 2.

 

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