A A A A A

Subheading Rules

HTML Markup Details

h2-h6 elements
The h2-h6 elements should identify major and minor sections of the web resource.
Headings should be properly nested following the heading levels represented by the numerical values of the heading elements.
  • h2 should be used as sub-heading after a h1
  • h3 should be used as sub-heading after a h2
  • h4 should be used as sub-heading after a h3
  • h5 should be used as sub-heading after a h4
  • h6 should be used as sub-heading after a h5

Accessibility Evaluation Rules

Hweadings Evaluation Rules
no. FAE 2007 FAE 2008 Description
1 Pass/Fail Pass/Fail

Heading elements that follow the last h1 must be properly nested.
2 N/A Pass/Fail

All subheadings (h2..h6) must contain text content.

Text Content includes

  • Text content includes all text nodes of children of the heading element.
  • Leading and trailing spacing characters are ignored. NOTE: If the text content is onl spaces it will be treated as empty.
  • If an img element with an alt attribute is contained in a subheading (h2-h6) element, the alt attribute value is inserted into the subheading text content in the order of appearance in the document to become part of the text content of the subheading element.
3 N/A Pass/Warning

The text content of headings of the same level within the same section should be unique.
4 N/A Pass/Warning

The text content of an subheading element (h2-h6) should not only come from the alt attribute value of img elements.

Implementation Notes

  • CSS should be used to style the text content of subheading elements instead of images.
5 N/A Pass/Check

The text content of headings should be concise (less than 65 characters).
Additional Rules

Additional rules on subheadings can be found at:

FAE Rule Implemetation

FAE 2007
The Illinois Functional Accessibility Evaluator (FAE) currently implements FAE 2007 rules.
The Illinois Firefox Accessibility Extension currently implements these rules.
FAE 2008
The FAE 2008 rules are designed to optimize the rules for implementation of Section 508, W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Illinois Information technology Accessibility Act requirements and are based on the requirements of these standards and experience with the problems of FAE 2007.
The Illinois Firefox Accessibility Extension currently implements some of these rules.

Navigation

Other HTML Best Practices

Working Group