Clear Purpose

New

The main purpose of each page and section of content is clear. Extraneous information that is not directly relevant to the main purpose of a page is distinctly separated and programmatically determinable. For multi-step tasks, signposts should be provided to clarify the broader context including steps completed, current step and steps pending.

Related Glossary Additions or Changes

None

What Principle and Guideline the SC falls within.

Principle 3, Guideline 3.1 Readable

Description

Each page or section of content should be organized and marked so that its purpose is obvious. This might be through the use of headings or labels or even a pyramid style of writing or even non textual markers (with suitable alternatives). A clear organization of content into pages and sections with obvious purpose allows users to more easily locate relevant sections and to be confident that those they read in detail will match their purposes. The user should be able to determine relevance of the content from the title without having to read the body of the content. The title should imply the reasons that the user may be looking for this content.

Ads that appear in-line in a section of content are rarely related to the purpose of a section and can be placed in a separate clearly delimited section.

Benefits

Being able to determine the purpose of a section without reading the entire content benefits all users. Those with cognitive disabilities will particularly benefit from an obvious top level structure with clear signposting. Users will be able to confidently locate the information they require and ignore content that is of limited interest to them. There will little need for repeated page navigation or detailed scanning of large qualities of text.

This Success Criterion helps a wide range of people with differing cognitive disabilities including people with:

Language related disabilities
Memory related disabilities
Disabilities that effect executive function and decision making
Focus and attention related disabilities

Here are some examples of how this will help people:

Someone with dementia loses focus and then cannot remember what they were doing
Someone with an attention disability gets distracted and then needs to pick up where they left off
Someone with a learning disability is not sure if this application has too many steps and if they will manage. By seeing they are half way though they can gauge if they can cope with the entire process.

Testability

Ensure by inspection that each page and subsection has an obvious declaration of its purpose that can be found without reading the entire content. If this fails, ask, "What is this content for?". If 9 out of 10 people who have not seen the content before gives the same substantive answer, then it is clear.
Ensure each section of a page has an obvious relationship to the page unless it's purpose is extraneous; in which case that should also be obvious and marked in an element or role that clarifies that.
Ensure that the method of indicating the purpose of a page or section is obvious to all users, regardless mode of accessing the content.
Ensure that each section that represents a step in a multi-step process contains signposting to context and current position in the process.