What Errors Should I Address First

Now that reports from Monsido are being sent out, there are two things you need to know:

1. Because people must be added to Monsido manually, the only people initially added were the site owners, principals and department directors. To add other names, I need the person’s: First Name, Last Name and Employee ID. They will then get an email directly from Monsido with their unique password to log into the Monsido site to view report details. I will allow anyone to request access to their school or department reports. However, remember to get edit rights, your principal or director must request those rights at: https://intranet.ocps.net/cms/One.aspx?portalId=125187&pageId=219493
   
2. I have encountered several problem with the reported Accessibility issues that could be more related to the underlying SchoolMessenger product than your content. I’ve been working with SchoolMessenger on some of these false positives but have quite a few yet to address.  As I get more info, I will post it on this blog.  I have little current interest in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) at this time as there are other issues that have higher priority
   
   1. Known issues include:
      
      1. Use the <i> tag (If you used the SchoolMessenger built-in editor to italicize text, this is not a problem. It is only a problem if you copied content from someone else.)
         
      2. Use of the <b> tag (If you used the SchoolMessenger built-in editor to bold text, this is not a problem. It is only a problem if you copied content from someone else.)
         
      3. Color contrast issues of text and links (This is also an issue in SchoolMessenger behind the scenes code and should not affect your site unless you overrode the default colors of text or links which should be avoided always.)
         

In the meantime, here are a Baker’s Dozen things you can focus on to improve your site. Some have been previously discussed in earlier post in this blog:

1. Fixing all broken links. (I have addressed many of the broken links over the last two months bringing the total number down to under 900, from a max of over 8,000.)
   
2. Fixing all misspellings. (actual misspellings – There should be very few of these left as I have addressed many of them in the last two months.)
   
3. Review all potential misspellings.
   
4. Eliminate excessive white space (more than 2 blank lines) which might cause screen readers to think they have reached the end of the page.
   
5. Eliminate blank pages or pages that have said coming soon for the last two years. If it has been two years, it is no longer coming soon. Keep work pages hidden until they are ready to be seen.
   
6. Check that all referenced documents (policies, event/meeting dates, supply lists, etc.) are current and not from past years.  If you do not have the current document and cannot get it, select Hide All Content from the Page Status list for that page or Archive the page (it can always be restored from Archive) until you can get recent information.
   
7. Redo any images with excessive text on the image (more than 1 line) because Screen Readers for the visually impaired will not read this text and it is therefore lost to these viewers of your site.
   
8. Ensure that all images have alt-text that either says ‘Decoration’ for images that DO NOT add to the content of the page or alt-text that describes the picture and how it augments the content of the page.
   
9. Ensure all hyperlinks have alt-text that says: “Click here to <view|go to|open> the <page|site|PDF document|form> <.|in a new window.>”
   
10. Make sure all links that go to a <page|site> outside of your site, or opens a PDF or form open in a new window.
    
11. Validate all PDFs created by your school staff for accessibility issues using Adobe Acrobat DC (which should be on your computers), make any corrections necessary, and re-upload the corrected versions.  (I have several blog posts on this topic.)
    
12. Make sure all email addresses use the Title property to add alt-text like: “Click here to email <name of person>”.
    
13. Make sure that headers are NEVER used just for formatting text and are ONLY used to define sections of a  content area, PDF, etc. and follow these rules:
    

    <h1> can only be followed by <h1> or <h2>
    

    <h2> can only be followed by <h1>, <h2> or <h3>
    

    <h3> can only be followed by <h1>, <h2>, <h3> or <h4>
    

    <h4> can only be followed by <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4> or <h5>
    

    <h5> can only be followed by <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5> or <h6>
    

    <h6> can only be followed by <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, <h6>
    

    You cannot jump into the middle of the hierarchy.