Accessibility Tip of the Month

Pope Tech Canvas Guide Series:
Working with Headings

By Marc Thompson

Where are you heading? It's a question we often ask ourselves, especially when we're trying to figure out where we're going. It's also a question that's especially important for students trying to understand and navigate their Canvas course content. And that's precisely why this month's Accessibility Tip of the Month focuses on using headings to organize content in Canvas and provide navigational support for all learners. Along the way, we’ll explain how to use Pope Tech's accessibility tool, the Canvas Accessibility Guide, to help you check if your headings have been correctly applied.

What Are Headings?

If you've ever created a topic outline, you already understand how headings work. There are six heading levels, with Heading 1 always serving as the page title. When you create a new page in Canvas, whatever you name the page is automatically formatted as a Heading 1. Heading 2 is used for main topics on the page, Heading 3 for subtopics, and so on.

As you build the rest of your page, you can format the main sections and subsections of your content by using the font format dropdown in the Canvas rich content editor (see Figure 1). Simply select the text you want to be a heading and choose the appropriate heading level. Once a heading level is applied, you can change its font size or color without affecting the heading's structure. You're not bound by the default heading sizes or colors.

Headings and Accessibility

Beyond simply organizing content, headings are a powerful navigation tool for all users. Think of them as signposts for your students. For someone using a screen reader, headings act as a kind of table of contents for the page, allowing the user to jump from one heading to the next with a single keystroke. Without headings, a screen reader user would have to listen to the entire page, word for word, to locate the information they need.

Whereas most sighted users quickly skim a page, looking at the size of the text and the spatial relationships as visual clues, screen reader users will quickly "skim" the heading structure to get a sense of the content and how it's organized. In fact, according to WebAIM’s 2024 screen reader user survey, shows that 71.6% of the 1,511 respondents use headings to navigate pages (see WebAIM's Screen Reader User Survey). To give you an idea of what screen readers see when they look at headings, Figure 2 shows a list headings a screen reader user might pull up in JAWS, a popular Windows-based screen reader. The number to the right of the headings in the list indicates the heading level. Note also the "Move to Heading" button used to facilitate navigation. Put plainly, organizing content with headings makes it easier for everyone to find what they're looking for by breaking up long blocks of text into manageable chunks. When headings are correctly applied, both sighted users and screen reader users can quickly see the relationships between different sections of content and more easily locate the information they need.

Using the Pope Tech Canvas Guide to Fix Heading Issues

Now that you understand how headings provide clear structure for your content, you can use the Pope Tech Accessibility Guide to check if headings have been properly applied to your page content. When you click the Pope Tech Accessibility Guide button next to the Save and Cancel buttons at the bottom of the Canvas editor (see Figure 3), the Guide will scan your page and report any accessibility issues it finds. If there are issues with your headings, they will be flagged.

Top 3 Heading Issues and How to Fix Them

We'll focus on the three main heading issues reported by the Pope Tech Accessibility Guide and how to fix them.

1. Empty Headings

Keyboard and screen reader users often navigate by headings. Empty headings (headings with no content) present no information to the user and can cause confusion. The Pope Tech Accessibility Guide identifies Empty Headings as errors.

To fix an empty heading, you can either add the missing heading text or remove the heading entirely (see Figure 4).

To locate the empty heading itself in the Canvas editor, select the Empty Heading error in the results list. This will highlight the issue in the editor, as shown in Figure 5.

2. Skipped Heading Levels

Headings provide a clear document structure. When heading levels are skipped (e.g., going from a Heading 2 to a Heading 4), users who rely on assistive technology may have trouble navigating. The Pope Tech Accessibility Guide identifies Skipped Heading Levels as alerts.

To fix this issue, you can locate the skipped heading by selecting the Skipped Heading icon in the Pope Tech results list (see Figure 6). This will highlight the heading in the Canvas Editor.

You can then use the Heading Outline tool to see the heading outline for the entire page with the skipped heading highlighted. The tool provides a convenient dropdown list you can use to change the heading to the correct level (see Figure 7).

3. No Heading Structure

Headings provide important document structure and navigation functionality for all users. When there are no headings on a page, it can be difficult for anyone to quickly understand the content and navigate through it.

To fix this issue, you need to add or mark text as a heading using the Canvas editor formatting options (see Figure 8). Remember to use the topic outline framework as your guide: the page title is always Heading 1, main topics are Heading 2, subtopics are Heading 3, and so on.

In short, using the Pope Tech Accessibility Guide can help you quickly and efficiently ensure that your Canvas page content is well-structured and accessible to all students. Regularly checking your pages with the Pope Tech tool and fixing any heading issues not only improves accessibility but also helps organize your content and make it easier to read and navigate for everyone.

So, where are your students heading? With a little effort and guidance from the Pope Tech tool, you can make sure they’re always on the right path.

Tune in next month when we explore color contrast in Canvas and how to use the Pope Tech Guide to identify and fix contrast issues making your content more accessible to all learners, especially those with low vision or color blindness.

Contact Information

If you’re looking to enhance the accessibility and inclusivity of your course design, CITL's Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Team is here to help! You can reach us at CITL-UDLTeam@illinois.edu.