Inside Silktide checks and policies
Silktide helps editors find and address shortcomings on their aalto.fi pages. The main weaknesses are based on a combination of default checks and custom policies. Editors can view them through individual report pages in the Silktide platform or directly via the Silktide browser extension.
Default checks include, among other things, key elements like broken links (links that lead to non-existent or inaccessible pages) and misspellings (words that do not match standard spelling). These two checks can be found under the Content section, and fixing them is essential for improving both accessibility and content quality. Note that some of them might be false positives so review them carefully before making changes.
Other default checks focus on more technical aspects eg. Ensure form controls have labels or Fix Javascript errors. If you do not feel comfortable with rather technical issues, you may want to ignore those. Note that default checks are integrated into different sections.
A key part of improving accessibility and content quality involves our custom policies, designed to track down typical mistakes in aalto.fi. Like with broken links and misspellings, the policies appear in the Content section. Ideally, you will stay within this section to avoid getting lost in technical details. You can see a list of the policies here below.
| Custom policy | Main issue | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Attachments in non-PDF format | Word, Excel and PowerPoint should be avoided. | Use PDF instead. |
| Digits at the end of a URL | Some search engines might consider that the page is a duplicate. | Avoid URL endings on single digits. Use custom URLs if that is happening. |
| Generic links not translated | 'See more', 'Read more', 'Register' should be translated. | Make sure you do not mix languages on the same page. |
| Heavy images and files | Avoid using images over 1Mb and documents over 10Mb. | Optimise images and aim for smaller file sizes. |
| Inappropriate alt text | The filename should not be used as alt text for an image. | Alt text should describe what it is on the image. |
| Link text as a URL | The link should be a descriptive text rather than a raw URL. | Wrap up the URL inside some text. |
| Long headlines and lead texts | Long titles and subtitles put off readers and affect our SEO score. | Aim for short and informative headlines. The lead text should be concise and complement the headline. |
| Missing table headers | Empty headers reduce accessibility and make the table's content hard to understand. | Include descriptive headers to guide readers effectively. |
| Overuse of bold, italics and ALL CAPS | Avoid using bold, italics, or ALL CAPS excessively —especially across full sentences or paragraphs. | Use bold and italics for emphasising keywords or short sentences. Use ALL CAPS for acronyms. |