The HTML Document Outline: Headings, Sections, and Hierarchy

Heading elements are among the oldest navigational affordances on the web. Long before nav landmarks, skip links, or ARIA roles, h1 through h6 gave screen reader users a way to scan a page — jumping between headings the way a sighted reader skims bold section titles in a magazine. That model still works. The story of how the HTML5 specification tried to improve on it, failed quietly, and was…