Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD)
Web Development
Web Developer Guidelines
Visual Design Recommendations

XML/XSLT Guidelines

Guideline 1: Ensure that authors can associate multiple media objects as alternatives

No. Checkpoint Source
1.1 Allow authors to associate text descriptions with any non-text content (graphics, sound, multimedia, scripts, etc.) Priority 1
1.2 Provide explicit, multiple types of relationships between alternatives to allow users to select alternatives which are useful to them XAG Priority

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Guideline 2: Create semantically-rich languages

No. Checkpoint Source
2.1 Use external stylesheets and do not use inline styles Priority 2
2.2 Separate presentation from structure in XML grammars and subsequent documents Priority 2
2.3 Use XML linking and pointing mechanisms for links Priority 2
2.4 Define element types that allow for further classification and grouping (header, section, list, etc) Priority 2
2.5 Define element types that allow the user to identify important text content Priority 2
2.6 Do not create multiple element names that may be confused within the context of the document instance Priority 1
2.7 When re-using modules from elsewhere, ensure that you apply their elements as intended Priority 2
2.8 Content is chunked into reasonable sizes and logical structures Priority 2
2.9 Provide a mechanism for identifying summary / abstract / title where possible Priority 1

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Guideline 3: Design an accessible user interface

No. Checkpoint Source
3.1 Provide default stylesheets for multiple output modalities Priority 2
3.2 Design the XML grammar so that documents can be presented in a device-independent way Priority 2
3.3 Allow for user control of interaction timing - rate of change, external events triggering document changes, etc. Priority 2

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Guideline 4: Document and export semantics

No. Checkpoint Source
4.1 Ensure that documentation is made available that meets W3C AA Accessibility compliance Priority 2
4.2 Provide a machine-understandable means to get from a document instance to the schema XAG Priority
4.3 Provide explicit human readable definitions for markup semantics XAG Priority
4.4 Provide semantic relationships to other schemas where appropriate and possible XAG Priority

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