"Well, it was to allow content to be truly modular, so that each chunk could be included in a document wherever the author wanted without any friction: Each chunk/module/section would be wrapped in a sectioning element (like a <section>) The heading level in each module would always start at level one (<h1>) The browser would create the document outline based on how the modules were put together"
"Strangely (or maybe not so strangely?) browsers added some support for the HTML5 document outline algorithm, but never quite finished the job: It worked visually, as browsers changed their default styling to match the algorithm Non-visually, it did nothing; the accessibility tree just included lots of level one headings, as per the markup, so screen reader users would have been left wondering what was going on"
HTML5 introduced a document outline approach that allowed modular content to always use <h1> inside sectioning elements while delegating heading level computation to the browser. Each chunk would be wrapped in a sectioning element and the browser would derive the document outline based on nesting, avoiding author-side if/else heading logic. Practical scenarios include blog lists and homepages where sample posts could adapt heading levels automatically. Browsers adjusted visual styling to reflect the algorithm but did not update the accessibility tree, resulting in many level-one headings and confusing screen reader experiences.
Read at tempertemper Web Design
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