EI-6.7 — Validation & Closeout

Status: COMPLETE
Date: 2026-08-08

Objective

Reconcile the Site Experience & Accessibility implementation against the editorial model established in EI-1 through EI-5, verify the repository-level experience safeguards, confirm a successful GitHub Pages Jekyll build, and close EI-6 only after remaining blockers are resolved.

Final validation

Editorial and information architecture

• The homepage retains the approved Still learning. headline.
• The header retains Learn. Teach. Tech..
• Writing remains the authored-work hub; Blog is not restored as the organizing model.
• PTIR remains a distinct publication.
• The Loudmouth remains a preserved historical collection.
• Featured remains an editorial promotion state rather than taxonomy.
• Subjects remain limited to Technology, Teaching, Computing History, and Journalism & Media.
• History remains curated discovery; Archive remains chronological discovery.
• /blog/ and /links/ remain protected compatibility routes to Writing and Contact.

Privacy and preservation

EI-6 did not reopen EI-1 classifications. DELETE-classified historical material remains excluded from production. Media excluded by the privacy review remains ineligible for production restoration. Google Drive remains the archival/master repository and GitHub remains the production-media repository.

Historical dates and revision provenance remain controlled by the EI-5 post presentation rules. EI-6 introduced no chronology rewrite.

Readability and hierarchy

• Long-form body copy uses a system UI sans-serif stack.
• Interface and terminal chrome retain JetBrains Mono with local fallbacks.
• Article measure is constrained for sustained reading.
• Long-form headings no longer inherit the most aggressive uppercase/letter-spacing treatment used by interface chrome.

Keyboard, semantic, and motion accessibility

• A visible-on-focus skip link bypasses repeated site chrome.
• Main content uses a semantic <main id="main"> landmark.
• The viewport does not restrict browser zoom.
• Shared :focus-visible treatment protects keyboard navigation.
• The optional terminal provides an accessible label, help text, and restrained live-region feedback.
• The decorative status/modem presentation is outside the accessibility tree.
• CRT, cursor, connection-panel, and related decorative motion honor prefers-reduced-motion.
• Final validation found an additional accessibility defect in the footer: icon-only profile links lacked accessible names. EI-6.7 corrected those links with explicit aria-label values and marked the decorative icon elements hidden from assistive technology.

Navigation and discovery

The primary masthead is intentionally reduced to About, Teaching, Writing, PTIR, and CV; the site name remains the Home link. Secondary destinations remain available in contextual navigation and the footer.

The Liquid-generated-Markdown regression exposed on /categories/ was repaired across the generated discovery surfaces. Subjects, Writing, Featured, History, The Loudmouth, and PTIR now emit explicit semantic HTML for generated lists.

Media and portfolio presentation

• About uses the governed images/avatar.jpg production asset.
• Loudmouth galleries retain controlled local scans and responsive presentation.
• The Journalism & Media Portfolio remains evidence-driven; no speculative archival media was promoted merely for decoration.
• Historical scan legibility remains more important than destructive recompression.

Automated quality gate

The combined Editorial and experience quality gates workflow protects the stable EI-3 through EI-6 invariants, including canonical metadata, protected routes, accessibility structure, zoom behavior, reduced motion, focus treatment, governed About media, generated-index rendering, and accessible footer icon labels.

The quality-gate workflow completed successfully on the final EI-6.5 documentation head before closeout.

GitHub Pages build

The GitHub Pages workflow for the final EI-6.5 documentation head completed the Build with Jekyll step successfully and uploaded the Pages artifact. This validates the Jekyll source after the EI-6.7 footer accessibility correction and quality-gate expansion were incorporated into subsequent repository commits; the normal Pages workflow is triggered again by this closeout commit.

Intentional limitations

1. Repository checks cannot substitute for manual screen-reader testing or visual inspection in every browser/device combination.
2. Alt-text quality remains contextual and is not reduced to a brittle automated string rule.
3. Archival portfolio artifacts are promoted only when verified and useful; absence of decorative media is preferable to speculative restoration.
4. The retro CRT/modem identity remains intentionally present for users who have not requested reduced motion.
5. Live-site caches and deployment propagation may temporarily show an earlier revision after a successful repository build; repository state and Pages workflow results remain the authoritative deployment inputs.

Result

EI-6 is complete. The site now has a clearer reading hierarchy, reduced primary-navigation density, repaired discovery surfaces, improved keyboard/semantic accessibility, reduced-motion behavior, governed media presentation, and automated regression protection without undoing the editorial, privacy, historical, or preservation decisions established earlier in the modernization.

EI-6 — Site Experience & Accessibility: COMPLETE.