Check the number of h1 elements on block theme templates

[matiasbenedetto]

What?

Check the number of h1 elements on each block theme template. This check only runs when checking block themes.

Results:

• If one template has multiple h1 tags, it outputs a REQUIRED change error.
• If a template has zero h1 tags, it outputs a WARNING.
• If a template has only one h1 tag, it outputs nothing.

How

It iterates over each block of a template and looks for core/heading or core/post-title with level one to determine the number of h1 blocks that will be printed on a page.

Why?

To help theme creators use one h1 tag per template following accessibility recommendations like: https://www.a11yproject.com/posts/how-to-accessible-heading-structure/

Screenshot

Results in wp-admin:

Results in CLI:

[justintadlock]

In general, I like the concept of this check, but I don't think it should produce a Required notice that would block submission of a theme to the directory.

Theme Check is primarily for ensuring that themes meet the WordPress.org Theme Review Guidelines. If we want to add a Required-level notice, it should first be discussed by the Themes Team, agreed upon, and added to the guidelines.

I have no issues with either of the first two items being a Warning-level notice for all block themes or even Required for themes with the accessibility-ready tag (they're part of the a11y requirements).

[matiasbenedetto]

I have no issues with either of the first two items being a Warning-level notice for all block themes or even Required for themes with the accessibility-ready tag (they're part of the a11y requirements).

Thanks for pointing this out @justintadlock. I agree with making both WARNING instead of REQUIRED following the a11y requirements linked. I changed that here: https://github.com/WordPress/theme-check/pull/468/commits/c05ac275cabdbfab3be25ccbefb4908c3e54d0a5

[aristath]

Multiple H1 headings is not something we should warn against... It's a perfectly valid pattern and does have valid use cases

[matiasbenedetto]

Multiple H1 headings is not something we should warn against... It's a perfectly valid pattern and does have valid use cases

@aristath The a11y requirements from the Theme Handbook says something different:

Failure criteria: These are specific criteria that are used to judge whether your hierarchy meets our requirements: No H1 element present on the page. More than two H1 headings on a single page.

Should we modify the a11n requirements or add this to the plugin? I'm not sure.

[carolinan]

What is going to count as a template? Because many templates today are technically PHP pattern files.

[aristath]

Should we modify the a11n requirements or add this to the plugin? I'm not sure.

The "Single H1 heading" rule is mostly a remnant of the HTML4 days... Multiple H1 headings are valid and in some cases, they just make more sense for the content of the page in question. A11y-wise it will surely be a problem for 15-year-old screen-readers, but in those systems, a lot of the HTML5 stuff WP uses will be an issue as well, so that should not be the main criterion. For a few years, there was also the myth that multiple h1 headings are bad for SEO, but that has also been debunked several times.