A Digital Accessibility Quick Reference Guide

Heading tag

Faux Headings

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A faux heading is text that looks like a heading in size, weight, or color but is not formatted with an HTML heading tag or a document heading style.

Webpage Headings

  • Do this: <h2>Impact on Accessibility</h2>
  • Not this: <span style=”font-size:1.5rem;font-weight:bold;color:#0000FF”>Impact on Accessibility</span>

Document Headings

Do this: Use built-in Styles to format headings.

Screen shot of formatting options in Microsoft Word with Heading 2 selected in the Styles options.

Not this: Manually format Normal text with font size, weight, or color

Screen shot of formatting options in Microsoft Word with Normal selected in the Styles options.

Why It Matters

Screen readers create a headings list—like a table of contents.
If the text isn’t a true heading, it’s not included. Users can’t jump to it.

Sighted users scan with their eyes. Screen reader users scan by headings.
Don’t lock navigation behind fake formatting.