Organizing Content

Using headings and subheadings to organize content in each chapter of your open textbook makes it easier for students to understand and follow. Headings are also one of the main ways that students who are blind or have low vision using a screen reader will navigate through a chapter.

What Do You Need to Do?

When it comes to using visual references to indicate the hierarchy and structure of a document, you may be accustomed to just changing the font, enlarging the type size, making it bold or underlined or italicized, creating the impression of a heading. This approach presents problems when creating material with accessibility in mind because screen readers won’t identify the text as a heading. Instead, a screen reader will just “read” through bold or underlined text as if it were part of another paragraph of content,  missing your intended cues about structure and organization.

To create effective, accessible headings in Pressbooks use styles in the visual editor to tag sections in your chapter (see Figure 6.2.1):

• • Start with Heading 2.
  • Use Heading 3 for sub-sections.
  • Use Heading 4 for sub-sections of sub-sections.