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5. Writing Content

The NZ government agency web site Standards related to writing content for web sites are:

5.1 Identify changes in natural language of document text

Clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents for:

  • paragraphs
  • captions
  • navigation
  • labels
  • block quotes

Note: an exemption to meeting this standard is granted where the change in natural language is Māori or a Pacific Island language. This is due to a lack of text readers that cover these languages. When sufficient coverage with text readers covers these languages, this exemption will then no longer apply.

Guide to this standard

If you use a number of different languages on a page, make sure that any changes in language are clearly identified.

For example, if a web site has a natural language (i.e. the predominant language used for the content of the web site) of English and part of the content is describing the greeting phrase in Māori - “Kia Orā”, this is a case of a change in the natural language.

This standard covers the W3C WAI checkpoint 4.1 for NZ government agencies.

Rationale for this standard

Screen readers will attempt to read screen content in whatever has been defined as the natural language of the web site. When a screen reader encounters a piece of text that is not in the natural language, unless told otherwise it will still attempt to pronounce the text phonetically in the natural language.

For example, if a web site has a natural language of English, a screen reader would have difficulty pronouncing the following piece of content, if not indicated prior to the Russian phrase that there is a change of natural language (to Russian) ‘When greeted by the Russian ambassador, he gave a “Приветствия от русского” welcome!‘

For further detail, see W3C

5.2 Identify the primary natural language of a document

Guide to this standard

Use the HTML LANG attribute in the web document’s HTML tag to identify the natural language. In XML, use “XML:LANG”. For New Zealand, the natural language is New Zealand English, the LANG value is "EN-NZ".

Example (HTML):

<HTML LANG=”EN-NZ”>
<HEAD></HEAD>
<BODY>
 …
</BODY>
</HTML>

This standard covers the W3C WAI checkpoint 4.3 for NZ government agencies.

Related Standards

5.1 - Identify changes in the natural language of document text

Rationale for this standard

This is predominantly for assistive technologies such as screen text and Braille readers, which need to be informed what the natural language of a web site is.

5.3 Expansion of abbreviations and acronyms in a document

Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs.

Guide to this Standard

Use the HTML ABBR and ACRONYM tags when using abbreviations or acronyms to define their full meaning. This standard covers the W3C WAI checkpoint 4.2 for NZ government agencies.

Rationale for this standard

The meaning of acronyms and abbreviations are not obvious on their own to all users of a web site, particularly for NZ Government agencies sites intended for public access.

Additionally, abbreviations are no more than the letters that they constitute to assistive technologies such as text and Braille readers, unless they are given more details as to what they stand for.

5.4 Substituting umlauted vowels for macronised vowels

Authors do not use altered fonts that substitute umlauted vowels for macronised vowels.

Rationale for this standard

Unicode is a standard that allows characters from a wide variety of languages to be encoded electronically, including the Māori macronised vowels. Unicode is now more widely supported by operating systems, fonts and browsers than was previously the case. Its use is recommended. Using altered fonts cannot guarantee this same level of support.

5.5 Height and width attributes are specified in the IMG element

Guide to this standard

The dimensions applied should be the actual dimensions of the image.

Rationale for this standard

Users who have slow connections can still obtain most of the textual content in a requested page before all the images have been downloaded, as opposed to having to wait for all content of the page to be rendered.

5.6 Underlining is not used for any items making up text or headings

Related Recommendation

6.1.5 - Avoid the usage of underscores in URLs

Rationale for this standard

Underlining is most commonly recognised as a link. To utilise underlining for purposes other than a link, renders it easily confused with a link.

5.7 Provide metadata to pages and sites

Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites. As a minimum, provide metadata for page title, keywords and descriptions.

Guide to this standard

Make selective use of CSS techniques to aid aural navigation.

This standard covers the W3C WAI checkpoint 13.2 for NZ government agencies.

Rationale for this standard

Metadata provides contextual information for people navigating the site, especially those with screen readers who rely on things such as page titles, structured page headings, and lists. Metadata may also be used by some search engines


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