Dreamwidth Documentation

I pointed out a sort of overarching issue with the FAQ documentation as currently written to rho, and, in traditional DW fashion, she asked me to take the first pass at solving it.

The problem is that some of the documentation is written with visual, spatial, or movement-specific language. To the extent possible, FAQs/sitedoc should not be written with the assumption that the eventual reader is going to be seeing the same images and screen ratios, nor that they'll be interacting with their computer with the same input devices as the writer's. On the one hand, you have people with disabilities using the site; on the other hand, you have people with an array of mobile devices using the site; and on the third hand, you have a few people out there still cruising in lynx, because they're Richard Stallman. (Not to mention that we'll support different siteschemes, and people will do all manner of funky things with their journal styles.)

I'm going to do a first sweep through the FAQ docs as currently written, but I strongly suggest you guys hook up with the Accessibility team for more expert advice. (For instance, I am unsure about whether or not dropdown menu is a term that is meaningful on a screenreader.) My inexpert advice is that, wherever possible, instead of describing a visual element, you include the image and its alt-text as it will appear on the site (maybe with a note that it's the site default?), and if you can skip the visual element and just link to the thingy in question, that's even better.

By visuospatiai issue, I mean that the FAQ says "perform this motion" for interacting with the site, or "item found to the left of second item" or "choose the [textual description of image] to accomplish task" Any language which requires the user to be seeing the same site visually or using the mouse or keyboard like the writer.

Additionally, all link text should be meaningful ("Choose your sitescheme" instead of "click here to"), and, a title attribute should be set when the link text doesn't match the page title of the page the link refers to.

FYI Each tab of my account settings has a URL, so you can link directly to that tab.

( FAQ's w/ visuospatial language )

P.S. Psst. forthwritten. May want to include site-specific URL forms in What Dreamwidth specific markup can I use?. All the lj were replaced with site.