Should headings have a bold font-weight?

Design & UX
1

Hi there,

I am designing a homepage for my new website and playing around with the font-weights for headings (H1, H2 and H3 at the moment)

I started off setting them as bold @ a font-weight of 900. I thought this looked good, however I then changed them to 500 and think they look a bit more easier to read, but don’t stand out as much as 900.

I guess it’s a bit down to personal preference, but should headings generally be bold? I know by default heading tags have a higher font-weight, but wondered what people think and if I should be keeping headings bold?

Thanks!

2

It is generally accepted that headings should be bold. Not just for the web, but in general writing too. Bolding provides a visual cue that tells readers it is a main idea or theme for a section. Even the APA style guide recommends bolding of headers…

Even your thread here on Sitepoint has a bold heading for your question. :wink:

3

I see, that makes sense.

Maybe I will play around with the weights and reduce it slightly so it’s not the boldest it can be, but still bold.

4

I find this book very helpful when thinking about such issues. It helps me think clearly about basic design principles. (I have no connection with the author or publisher).

5

i wouldnt go so far as to say headings should be bold; headings should stand out, and delineate the thing they are heading. Bold is a common way of doing so, but not the only.

3 Likes
6

Would tryouts earn more SEO Brownie Points if the text was enclosed inside <strong>…</strong>

7

From https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/strong:

The <strong> HTML element indicates that its contents have strong importance, seriousness, or urgency.

That does not generally apply to headings, so would be an incorrect usage of the <strong> element, as far as I can see.

3 Likes
8

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