A sighted reader takes in a page as a picture: headings stand out, links are blue, a chart is obviously a chart. A screen reader presents the same page as a stream of text, one item at a time, unless the author has built in structure it can use. Screen-reader users do not read every word; they navigate. They pull up a list of headings to find the section they want, a list of links to see where they can go, and they jump by heading level. If the author made headings by enlarging text, that list is empty. If every link says “click here” or “read more,” the link list is eight identical entries with no destination. Structure is what turns a stream into a map.
Headings are applied with the built-in heading styles, in order: one first-level heading for the title, second-level for sections, third-level for subsections. Skipping from first to fourth to make something look smaller breaks the outline. Links say where they go or what they do: “Read the Provider Manual, chapter 4” rather than “click here,” and a full web address only when the document is meant to be printed. Alt text answers the question “what would this reader need to know about this image, here?” A chart’s alt text states what the chart shows, for example “Bar chart: applications completed by phone rose from about one in ten to about one in four over the period,” and the underlying numbers go in a table or the text. A photograph on a flyer describes what matters about it in a sentence. A logo says the organization’s name. A purely decorative banner is marked decorative so the screen reader skips it. Alt text does not begin with “image of” or “picture of”; the screen reader already announces that it is an image.
Everything here applies to web pages, documents, slides and lesson pages alike. The tools have different names; the principle is the same. Real structure, applied with the built-in features, that assistive technology can read.
