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Cornell University

Web Accessibility Reviews

Headings that exist describe the topic or purpose of the content following after.

WGAC 2 criterion 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (AA)
Category Content
ACT Rules

WCAG 2 criterion

2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA)

Tools and requirements

  • Manual Assessment
  • WAVE, axe Accessibility Checker

Test procedure

During manual evaluation, observe all the headings present on the page. Ensure that the heading name correlates to the content that follows it until the next sibling heading. The heading name also needs to be relatively concise, and not overly wordy.

For example, if you had a heading 2 saying "News," then all content and subheadings must relate to "News" until the next heading 2 is encountered.

Note that if a heading's accessible name is descriptive (using aria-label or similar) but the visual heading is not, it is still a failure of this criterion.

This criterion is not applicable to pages where no headings are used at all.

AI Prompt