Re: [style guide] Tone section

Great idea Eric, please do add that link, thanks!

On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 10:29 AM, Eric Eggert <ee@w3.org> wrote:

> On 25 Jul 2017, at 17:23, Sharron Rush wrote:
>
> yes, fine with me for you to make that change
>>
>
> +1, maybe link to Understanding SC 3.1.5 as we’re striving for WCAG AAA
> where possible and there are some good techniques in there to make texts
> simpler.
>
> https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/meaning-supplements.html
>
> (Of course it will be hard to always conform to this SC due to the
> technical nature of our content, but let’s include it as our North Star, so
> to speak…)
>
> Eric
>
>
>> On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 10:21 AM, Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for the tersification, James & Sharron!
>>>
>>> I'm not sure about "with a reading level on average of 10th grade."
>>>
>>> Some issue around that, but I don't think it's high priority right now.
>>> Are you OK if we leave that out for now (and leave "use plain language"),
>>> and if folks feel strongly about it, we can revisit it later?
>>>
>>> ~Shawn
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/13/2017 12:28 PM, Sharron Rush wrote:
>>>
>>> Updated Tone section and added the example in the Editorial section.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks James!
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 10:04 AM, Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org <mailto:
>>>> shawn@w3.org>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     On 7/2/2017 1:22 PM, Sharron Rush wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         I removed this ''[@@ to do: tersify this paragraph]'' note from
>>>> the paragraph as I reviewed it, tried a few things, and finally decided
>>>> to
>>>> leave as is.  Tone is a subtle thing to consider and all of the elements
>>>> referenced seem important to help us all arrive at an appropriate tone
>>>> for
>>>> the variety of docs. OK with everyone?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     James in <https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wb
>>>> s/35532/EO-Weekly-7-Jul-2017/
>>>> results#xq6 <https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35532/EO-Weekly-7-Jul-2017/
>>>> results#xq6>>:
>>>>
>>>>     [I feel strongly about the following]
>>>>
>>>>     I think the style guide needs to add strong preference for brevity
>>>> and use of bullets over paragraphs along with adding some visual
>>>> content as
>>>> appropriate. This needs to be mentioned specifically in a new section so
>>>> editors are clear that their primary job is to try to cut half of the
>>>> sentences and half of the words while adding some visual content to
>>>> create
>>>> visual anchors and break things up more. (Remember the 3 issues this
>>>> project is tackling are the out-of-date visual design, findability, and
>>>> the
>>>> **wall-of-text effect**.) The style guide itself, much like many of our
>>>> resources, tends to try to explain things with many examples, leading to
>>>> long, wordy, complex, rambling, unnecessarily verbose sentences.
>>>>
>>>>      >From the style guide: "From Technical Reports and Publications to
>>>> How-To guides for implementation to documents that help human beings
>>>> make
>>>> sense of complex technical specifications, the tone of the presentations
>>>> may vary considerably. In general WAI documents will have a tone that is
>>>> welcoming, encouraging, and even inspiring around web accessibility.
>>>> Materials should educate people without patronizing or confusing them
>>>> and
>>>> should be as plain spoken, jargon-free, and straight forward as
>>>> possible."
>>>>
>>>>     I applaud the obvious goal of comprehensiveness and clarity, but
>>>> each
>>>> of those sentences has a set of 3 comma separated examples. The last
>>>> sentence has a second set of 3 things for a reader to parse. Less is
>>>> more
>>>> when writing for the web.
>>>>
>>>>     As an example of what I think the style guide needs to communicate
>>>> about the editing tasks ahead of us, I would rewrite the section to say
>>>> "Given the various types of documents, tone may vary; however in
>>>> general,
>>>> WAI documents will have a tone that is welcoming, encouraging, and
>>>> inspiring. Materials should be straight-forward, and educate without
>>>> patronizing, using plain language with a reading level on average of
>>>> 10th
>>>> grade." and even use that rewrite as an example of what we want people
>>>> to
>>>> do.
>>>>
>>>>     If we can pull maybe 5 sentences from existing resource and do that
>>>> to them and include that in the new section, it would help a lot.
>>>>
>>>>     ###
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Sharron Rush | Executive Director | Knowbility.org | @knowbility
>>>> /Equal access to technology for people with disabilities/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Sharron Rush | Executive Director | Knowbility.org | @knowbility
>> *Equal access to technology for people with disabilities*
>>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Eric Eggert
> Web Accessibility Specialist
> Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) at World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>
>


-- 
Sharron Rush | Executive Director | Knowbility.org | @knowbility
*Equal access to technology for people with disabilities*