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Headings out of order

Many people navigate a page by jumping between headings. Skipping levels breaks that, even though the page looks completely normal.

What a shopper experiences

Headings have levels, like the outline of a document: a main heading, then sub-headings beneath it, then sub-sub-headings. Screen reader users often skim a page by jumping from heading to heading. When a page goes straight from the top level to the third, it suggests a section that is missing — confusing if the outline is how you are finding your way.

How much this matters

This is the mildest thing we flag, and it is rarely urgent. Fix the image descriptions and the form labels first. We report it because it is a genuine part of the standard and because it is a good signal about how carefully a theme was built.

How to fix it

The rule of thumb: choose the heading level for where it sits in the outline, not for how big you want the text to look. Size is a styling decision, and your theme can make any heading level any size. If a section header looks wrong at its correct level, that is a styling change, not a reason to move the level.

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