Creating Accessible Learning: Structure and Organization

When organizing your LibGuide content, take advantage of existing methods to clearly distinguish sections and sub-sections of information. Headings are used to visually and structurally identify webpage components in a similar manner to a table of contents in a book.

How to Include Headings (Heading 3)

Use Springshare’s built-in Heading formatting to apply headings properly:

• The LibGuide Page Title (e.g., Creating Accessible Learning: Structure and Organization) is automatically formatted as Heading 1
• LibGuide Boxes (e.g., Headings & Content Chunking) are automatically formatted as Heading 2
  • Each time you need another instance of Heading 2, add a new LibGuide Box
  • Note: Floating Boxes are not properly encoded as Heading 2, so please avoid using this style of box! Stick to the default, non-floating box
• Heading 3 and beyond can be added via the Rich Text Editor when editing the contents of a LibGuide Box
  • The default paragraph formatting is “Normal,” but selecting this menu will provide options to specify heading levels from Heading 3 down to Heading 6 (see Figure 1)

For more in-depth information about headings, visit:

Bulleted and Numbered Lists

To maximize readability among potential audiences, reduce the length and complexity of the text content of your LibGuides. Keep paragraph topics focused and use bulleted or numbered lists to convey series of words or phrases in a more digestible way.

• Maintain a logical order for the content of sentences, paragraphs, and sections
• Use active voice unless there is a specific reason passive voice is needed
• Avoid jargon, slang, or other specialized words that may be unclear
• Replace complex words or phrases with more common words if doing so does not change the meaning of the sentence

When creating a bulleted or numbered list, make sure to use the formatting options in LibGuides to create the list rather than using shapes or other symbols in unformatted text.

For more in-depth information about bulleted and numbered lists, visit:

Tables

Tables should be used to convey data, not as a content organization tool. When you create a table, be sure to change the Table Properties to indicate headers (i.e., first row, first column, or both). This ensures that people using screen readers have headers read aloud as they navigate through the cells in the table. You also have the option to add a caption to your table (see Figure 2). 

For more in-depth information about tables, visit: