In WYSIWYG editors, why for headings the whole paragraph turns into a heading, instead of just the selected text?

Question

In WYSIWYG editors, when you select some text and try to format it as a heading the whole paragraph turns into a heading, rather than just the selected text. With all other elements (bold, italic, etc.)—granted they're inline elements but I don't think the average user know what that even means—the opposite happens.

I don't get this.

It seems that this is the most used (if not the only) approach used, but as a user I don't think I'd expect this behavior at all.

My question is: why are WYSIWYG editors implemented like this, and isn't it true that an average user would expect only the selected text to turn into a heading, rather than the whole block-level container?

I also made a video show the difference between the two approaches: https://vimeo.com/87710823

Any input appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The second option makes a few assumptions.

First, a fact: Headers are block-level HTML elements, not styling elements.

Selecting exactly every character you want can be rather tedious and very frustrating at times. Given that, this option assumes that if a user clicks anywhere in a paragraph they just wrote and changes the block-level style, they want to apply to the whole paragraph. Why? Because you just wrote the paragraph together. If you wanted it split into a headline and then a paragraph, you would have written it that way. Is this a big assumption? Yes, but most likely it's going to be correct most of the time.

It's quicker for most users to select a few characters anywhere in paragraph and change a block-level style then having to select the whole paragraph. The task doesn't have to be as precise now.

The first option also makes assumptions. The first assumption being that you've selected every character needed for your headline. Second, that you want to split the selected copy out from the paragraph.