Below are listed the updates I made to Module 5 in order to promote accessibility for the website:
1) Included a full navigational bar on the left side of each page in order to improve navigation through the entirety of the website
2) Changed the headings in the HTML in order of what’s most important to what’s least important, using h1 and then working down towards h5 with each successive heading. This helps promote findability through web searches by assigning importance to key words that will ideally be picked up during searches. Then, I went back and edited the individual font sizes in CSS to create a size hierarchy that flows well and adheres to stylistic standards. This makes it easier for a user to read and to identify headers and subheaders as they are introduced, whiel controlling the size within the parameters I felt worked best with the website. The font size is not overbearing and fits with the streamlined, technical visuals and content of the rest of the website.
3) Included a full and organized resources page to help clarify information. This is organized first by print versus web content, and then by topic. The W3 was given its own section in order to highlight some of the more useful of their websites that I have used throughout this class. I also made this page reflective of what we went over in class, with a focus on color and design, and another section for stock photos. These headlines are separated by bold type and are organized in a way that is easy to read.
4) Added contact information. After reading the accessibility sites provided, I felt it would be important to improve accessibility by opening up and inviting contact with users by providing an email address link on the front page, just under the introduction paragraphs. This should make it easy to find, and hopefully will provide useful feedback from actual users about the site's content and layout.
5) Colored navigation bar white to stand out. Again after reading over the accessibility material, I thought changing the background to white would make the content more visible and attract more attention, instead of risking having the links fade into the background color.
6) Specified English as the language to make the metadata more specific and narrow the target audience.
7) Added related keywords in the metadata to promote findability. These I plan to add more to as time goes on and I reflect more fully on the concept.
8) Created a free trial profile on Dashboard and tested the new Module 6 site for compliance with Chrome, Firefox, and Windows (PC), and with Firefox, IE, and Safari (Mac) to make sure that the overall site loaded correctly.