New E-learning

Headings 

A heading is a label that names a slide or a content section and reveals its structure. Arranged hierarchically from the most general to the most detailed, headings allow both learners and assistive technologies to understand the module’s organization and find their way around it.

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Headings structure the content and give assistive technologies the module’s navigation map. Storyline publishes a semantic structure: the course title forms the heading of the player’s top region, and the slide title forms the heading of the main region. 

Application: Home → Font group → Styles → Heading 1 to Heading 6. This is the only mechanism that produces a semantic heading. Enlarging text, making it bold, or coloring it does not create a heading. 

Convention to lock in the design system:

  • Slide title: a single level, identical throughout the module 
  • Subsection: the level immediately below, with no skipped level 
  • Labels, captions, key figures, button labels: never headings 

Each slide carries a unique, explicit title: it is announced on arrival at the slide and feeds the player menu. 

Known limitation: republishing a project created with an older version of Storyline does not always regenerate the expected semantic structure. Verification must be done on the published output, never on the source file alone. 

When to use a heading

  1. Name each slide with a unique, explicit title, echoed in the Storyline slide's title. 
  2. Structure a dense slide into identifiable sections. 
  3. Introduce a change of topic or stage in the course. 

When not to use a heading

  1. Effet graphique : ne pas utiliser un style de titre pour mettre en valeur un texte courant.
  2. Titre non descriptif ou répété à l'identique sur plusieurs diapositives (« Suite », « Écran 4 »).
  3. Hiérarchie simulée par la seule taille de police, ou saut de niveau dans la structure.

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Hierarchy rules

  • Only one highest-level heading per slide 
  • No skipped level 
  • Levels reflect the structure of the content, never a graphic intent 

Prohibited

  • Simulating a heading through size, weight, color, or capitals 
  • Applying a heading style to text that is not a heading, just to achieve formatting 
  • Embedding a heading in an image (text as image) 

Writing

  • An explicit title, understandable out of context: "The EAA's Four Obligations" rather than "Introduction" repeated across twelve slides 
  • 60 characters maximum 
  • No manual numbering that duplicates the menu 

Hidden headings: avoid an invisible heading intended only for screen readers. A visible heading benefits every learner; if the design does not include a visible heading, the design must change. 

On this page

Expected reading order

To be defined in the Focus Order panel (Home ribbon):

  • Slide title, as the first element 
  • Any subtitle 
  • Content 
  • Action buttons, then player navigation buttons 

Screen readers allow jumping from heading to heading (heading-navigation shortcut or rotor, depending on the screen reader) and display the list of headings. This navigation only works if heading styles have actually been applied. 

Player menu

Menu labels come from the slide titles. Renaming them in the menu without correcting them on the slide creates an inconsistency between what is displayed and what is announced.