| | Dear [First Name]
Welcome to Session 6: The Robust PrincipleSession 5 RecapIn the last session the focus was on making websites, and web content, understandable. This is accomplished by making content easily readable, being consistent in the presentation of content and navigation, and ensuring that errors are prevented, or are easily correctable, among other things.
The text you were working with in Activity 5, from the Golden Bull Awards, is an exaggerated example of an unnecessarily complex response to a simple question. It could have been answered with a simple statement like "Sorry. We do not carry blank CDs any more. You could try jungle.com".
Though you won't come across too many websites where the language is this bloated with unnecessary complex terms and phrasing as the example in the activity, it is still a good practice to simplify language wherever possible when the content is intended for a general audience. Replace uncommon words with more common ones, or with short phrases. Use words with fewer syllables. Use shorter sentences and paragraphs. Even more educated audiences appreciate reading content that the author has taken care to make understandable.
Session 6Principle 4 is aimed primarily at web developers. Specifically, it identifies what they need to do to ensure web content is usable across a range of scenarios and devices and ensures that web content continues to be usable into the future as technology evolves. This often means building content to standard (e.g., using valid HTML), and, when non-standard features or strategies are used, there's a standard version to fall back on. We won't go into too much detail on Principle 4, which is covered more thoroughly in the developer course in this course series. But, for non-developers, it is still good to be aware of what developers should be doing, even if code is "Greek'' to you.
This session's tasks:- Read through the pages that describe Guideline 4.1. As well as the introduction to WAI-ARIA found in Unit 6.
- Complete Activity 6: HTML Markup Validation. Though it generally takes someone knowledgeable in writing HTML to correct markup errors, anyone can run a markup validator to see the quality of the code behind a website. It is not uncommon for assistive technology to have problems when invalid or broken markup is encountered.
Best wishes
Greg Gay (CPACC, WAS, CPWA)
IT Accessibility Specialist, Ryerson University
Lead Course Developer
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