In this lesson you
- An untagged PDF went in
- The machine fixed four problems
- A person answered one question, and certified it
Transcript
Bringing a PDF in
One document, start to finish. What does it actually take to make one PDF accessible, and to prove it? Let's follow one document, from upload to certificate. The library is empty, so we start with Add documents. Documents can come in four ways. By their web address, as a zip, or from a crawl of your whole website. The fourth is a file from your computer, which is how this one arrives. That's Upload files. This one is a one-page community update. As soon as it's uploaded, Proof checks it against two standards. WCAG 2.1 AA is the accessibility standard itself. PDF/UA is its companion for how a PDF must be built. Uploading and checking cost nothing. Let's open it and see what Proof found.
What was wrong
Every document follows the same path, laid out across the top. Auto is Proof's automatic pass. Then come four steps where a person decides, ending in Certify. A number on a step counts what's still open there. Red means a fix is needed, and amber means a person has to look. A lock means the step waits on an earlier one. This file's first problem is the biggest. It has no tags. Tags are the hidden labels that tell a screen reader what each part of a page is, a heading, a paragraph, a picture. Without them, a screen reader hears one long run of text. Every other fix waits on this one.
The machine does its part
A machine can do that work, so Proof does it first. Choose Remediate this document. Proof repairs everything a machine can decide, and drafts answers for what a person has to judge. On a page like this, it takes about a minute, and it keeps going if you leave. When it finishes, it leaves a receipt of what it changed. Four problems are fixed. Among them are the missing tags, the document's title, and its language. Auto, Reading and Visibility now carry green checks, so nothing is open in them. One question is left for a person. What does the photo show? That question waits in Objects.
A person does theirs
Only a person can say what a picture means. But they don't start from a blank page. Proof has already drafted a description. You read it against the photo, and if it's right, you use it. Then you apply it, and the description is written into the file. Every change is checked, not assumed. Proof saves the result as a new version and checks the whole document again. That re-check covers the other steps too. In Reading, the order a screen reader follows already matches the page, so nothing is left to confirm. In Visibility, the text has enough contrast for every reader to see it.
Certified
Certification is a gate. It opens only when nothing is left to fix or review, and here it says Gate open. Approving locks this version, uses one document from your balance, and issues the certificate. Until then, the document hasn't cost you anything. So, Approve and certify. The version is sealed, and the certificate is issued for this exact file. Anyone can verify it, without an account. At the top of the page, the document's status now reads Certified. That's the whole loop. Proof did the mechanical work, a person answered the one question that needed judgment, and the result is certified. To see it on a file of your own, there's a free trial that needs no login. It has its own lesson.
Recap
That's the end of this lesson.
Maple Ridge Community Health, its documents and its people are fictional, made for these lessons.