- Structured, online content, is easy to navigate,

and accessible to everyone.

In this video, we'll take a look at two methods

that you can use to add structure to your content.

The first method is to add headings.

Generally, it's good practice to divide longer documents

or content into sections, and then label each section

with a subheading. For example,

here's a lecture I've typed that has several sections,

and I've given each section a subheading.

Visually, it's easy to see that there's subheadings,

and students without visual impairments might be able

to quickly scan the document to find a particular section.

However, students who use screen reading technology

are unable to see these visual elements,

so they rely on a feature called Headings.

Robust word processors, such as Microsoft Word,

have a built in style feature called Headings,

that allows you to use your existing subheadings

to create structure, much like an outline to your document.

This outline allows all students to scan the document

to locate relevant sections.

Generally, a document's title will be assigned Heading 1,

and this will be the only Heading 1 in the document.

It serves as the document's main topic.

Subheadings will be assigned Heading 2, and when needed,

a subheading assigned Heading 3 can be nested

under the content of a Heading 2. It's important

that the outline remains logical. It would be challenging

to understand the structure if a sequence of subheadings

were labeled, for example, Heading 2 and then

Heading 4 and then Heading 3.

If using Microsoft Word, the navigation pane displays

the document's outline. And if I click

on one of the headings, I'll quickly jump

to that subheading. That's pretty handy, and it's a part

of what makes using heading styles so accessible.

The second method of creating document structure

is to use list commands to form structured lists.

Structured lists are accessible, not only because they allow

screen reading software to announce the number of items

in the list, but they appear tidy, and are easy to navigate.

When available, list commands are generally located

above a text editor, and depending upon your needs

and the capability of your word processor,

you can use list commands to create either bulleted

or numbered lists. Both are accessible, and allow you

to create sub-levels within the list, if needed.

Using headings and list commands to create structure

helps ensure your learning content is easy

for all of your students to navigate and locate information.