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Talk 2 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/presentations/ili-2004/ QA For Web Sites: What Can Go Wrong? Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath Email [email protected] UKOLN is supported by: A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Exercise What Can Go Wrong? In small groups: • Introduce yourselves • Outline key areas in which things can go wrong on your Web site • Group these into: Mission-critical problems Significant problems Minor problems • Summarise how you find out that things have gone wrong • Choose a reporter to give a brief report back Spend about 10 minutes on this exercise. A centre of expertise in digital information management 2 www.ukoln.ac.uk What Can Go Wrong? Pages displayed Pages not incorrectly Inaccessible displayed Web site Broken links Backend systems don't work Usability problems Forms don't Possible work Problems People issues Security problems Workflow issues Poor performance Wrong Out-of-date content functionality Incorrect or misleading content A centre of expertise in digital information management 3 www.ukoln.ac.uk Finding Problems How Would You Find Out? How would you find out when things have gone wrong? • Users inform you • Users complain • The boss of your organisation informs you • You occasionally check things • You have systematic procedures for checking • Users report problems during system testing prior to release of service A centre of expertise in digital information management 4 www.ukoln.ac.uk Finding Problems Tools And Techniques We will now look at tools and techniques which can be used for checking various aspects of Web sites including: • Compliance with HTML standards • Compliance with CSS standards • Compliance with accessibility guidelines • Link checking • … A centre of expertise in digital information management 5 www.ukoln.ac.uk Finding Problems HTML and CSS Validation Why? You should validate HTML pages to ensure that it will work in multiple browsers, will be accessible and is interoperable Tools You can use desktop tools or Web-based services (e.g. W3C) A centre of expertise in digital information management 6 www.ukoln.ac.uk Finding Problems Checking Links Why? You should check the links on your pages to ensure that your Web service is functional Tools You can use desktop tools or Web-based services (e.g. W3C) 7 Note As well as traditional hyperlinks (and images) Web pages may also have links to JavaScript and CSS files. You will need A centre of expertise in digital information management to ensure the links work otherwise the page may notwww.ukoln.ac.uk be usable. Finding Problems Web-Checking Services There are many Web-checking services which will carry out multiple checks e.g. DrHTML, NetMechanic, … http://www.doctor-html.com/RxHTML/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 8 www.ukoln.ac.uk Finding Problems Limitations Of Tools When using these tools across many Web sites sometimes unusual or unexpected findings occur: • Obvious mistakes made (page size clearly too small) • Tool uses out-of-date standard • … You should be aware of: • Tool analysing redirect message and not page • Tool analysing frame set and not pages • Tool not analysing embedded objects • Tools may need to be complemented by manual checking (e.g. accessibility, usability, content) A centre of expertise in digital information management 9 www.ukoln.ac.uk Accompanying Resources About HTML Standards • Compliance with HTML Standards, QA Focus, Briefing Document No. 1 Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) • Use Of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), QA Focus, Briefing Document No. 34 Link Checking • Approaches To Link Checking, QA Focus, Briefing Document No. 7 A centre of expertise in digital information management 10 www.ukoln.ac.uk