Quality Assurance Checklists

Can a reader:

• Quickly understand what they'll find if they read further?
• Know what they won’t find?

Tips:

• Have someone unfamiliar with the content glance at the start and say what they expect the rest to cover.
• If readers can find your information somewhere elsewhere, consider linking to it instead. This reduces the chances for conflicting information.

• Can the reader find key concepts and facts in a quick skim?
• Did you sort and chunk the information so readers can easily identify the structure of the content or find a section they are interested in?
• Do you use graphics or layout options effectively?

Tip:

• Have someone unfamiliar with the content quickly skim it (a second or two) and then explain what they remember.
• Identify the key ideas readers absolutely need and make sure they are prominent.

• Have you reviewed and followed the quick style checklist? (login required)
• Have you followed AP and Grinnell Stylebook standards? (access from Grinnell campus/VPN required)
• Have you proofread your work? Or had someone else do so?

Tip:

• Either have a second person proofread your work or wait a few days before doing it yourself. Fresh eyes find things you otherwise wouldn't.

• Are your images sharp and clear?
• Does the image strengthen the message of the text?
• Would a user be likely to make an inadvertent assumption about an image?
  • For example, if the text describes one person and the image another, consider adding a caption to clarify.
• Have you checked the background for possible issues? Such as:
  • trees growing out of heads
  • photobombs
  • inappropriate content

• Have you checked:
  • dates, times, & locations of events
  • the spelling of names
  • class years
  • the correct gender of pronouns
  • job titles
  • contact information
  • links

Tip:

• If it is a fact, check it.

• Does the title make sense when it shows up in search results?
• Can it be distinguished from similar pages?
• Is It Capitalized in Title Case?

• Are pages longer than 450 characters divided by subheadings?
• Are subheadings nested properly and in order? In other words, are heading 3s subsections of a heading 2?
• Are subheadings used to group information, not for bolding or formatting or in an attempt to make text stand out?

• Do all images have descriptive alt text?
• Does the alt text provide all the information the image does?
• Do images look good all places they may appear? E.g. Does the main image on a news item look good in a 3-column news component or a news carousel?

See Images for tips and instructions for adding images to our website.

• If you could only see the text for the links on the page (not the surrounding text), could you tell what you'd find at the other end? Do not use link text that is:
  • “click here,” “show more,” or other generic text
  • a file name (e.g. 2015-whitepaper.pdf)
  • URLs or email addresses
• Do links go where they are supposed to go?
• Do links to pages on the www.grinnell site use node ids? (Are they added through the lookup field for internal pages?) This ensures the links will not break later.
• Have you linked to pages with additional information?
• Have you linked to sponsoring organizations?
• Do links open in the same window?

See Links for more information.

• Do videos and audio have a transcript?
• Do videos have captions?
• Do videos have audio descriptions if needed?

• Do all tables have heading rows and/or columns?
• Are all tables used for tabular data, not for layout?
• Are your tables simple tables or marked up in the code for more complex tables?
• Have you included a table caption or summary if appropriate?

See Tables for more information.

Do all media — including video, audio, PDFs, Word documents, and text files — meet accessibility requirements such as:

• alt text on images
• captions and transcripts for videos
• proper nesting and use of headers
• proper use and markup of tables
• etc.

See Disability Resources on GrinnellShare for more information or to get help. In particular, see Enabling Access Resources for help working with different types of documents and media. 

• Have you included a summary?
• Does the summary provide enough information for a user to decide if they want to click through to the full article?
• Does it consist of full sentences with punctuation?

• If you use automated news feeds, have you tagged your department in the Groups taxonomy?
• If you don't, have you updated your home page or other pages to display the news item?

• Have you included an image in the image carousel?
• Have you set the focus so the image will crop well on the news page itself, as well as when pulled into news components or to the main News page?

See Images and News Content Type for more information.