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QA For Web Sites Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath Email [email protected] URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ Contents • What Is Quality • Quality And Web Sites • QA Case Study • Approaches To Testing • Benchmarking • Conclusions UKOLN is supported by: A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Background To Web & QA Focus Web Focus: • A JISC-funded post to advise the UK’s HE and FE community • Provided by Brian Kelly QA Focus: • An advisory service for JISC’s 5/99 projects • Provides advice and support for projects in order to ensure that projects comply with standards and best practices • Provided by UKOLN (Marieke Guy & Brian Kelly) and ILRT This talk is informed by the work of Web and QA Focus A centre of expertise in digital information management 2 www.ukoln.ac.uk Quality Control and Quality Assurance Quality Control (QC): • Use of regular testing procedures against your definitions of quality and more specifically the refinement of these procedures • Relates to outputs Quality Assurance (QA): • examines the processes that shape your Web site in the first place and so encompasses Quality Control • Relates to inputs • Should be involved in development stage of a Web site and throughout its life cycle A centre of expertise in digital information management 3 www.ukoln.ac.uk What Can Fail on Your Site? • • • • • • • • • • • • Broken links, broken emails Server load – too many hits on the site Client side performance –down load time Security isn’t working Content is out of date Browser incompatibility,HTML doesn’t validate Interface – navigation, link colour Graphics missing or too large Scripts don’t work - forms, databases Isn’t accessible to those with disabilities Browser dependencies … A centre of expertise in digital information management 4 www.ukoln.ac.uk What Can You Test? • • • • • • • • • • • • Functional testing Compatibility testing Load/performance testing Stress testing Usability testing Security testing Integration of unit testing Link testing HTML Validation Reliability testing Regression testing … A centre of expertise in digital information management 5 www.ukoln.ac.uk What Procedures? • Good documentation • Requirements • Specifications • Mission statements or statement of direction • Define your audience • Testing suite and tools • Usability testing • Use the right authoring tools etc. • Track problems A centre of expertise in digital information management 6 www.ukoln.ac.uk Issues Things to be aware of: • Testing goals should relate to kind of site you have • Testing time is limited use automated tools • Automated tools can be inadequate use manual tests • Documentation is critical to ensure practices are repeatable • Motivating/persuading people to implement a QA culture can be difficult • Implement your QA procedures over time to avoid stifling productivity • QA planning at the start of development means less time fixing things at the end A centre of expertise in digital information management 7 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study Case Study: IWMW Web Site http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2002/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 8 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study Aims Of Web Site The aims of the Web site were: • To provide information about the workshop for participants, speakers, etc. • To provide an online booking facility • To act as a demonstrator of standards, best practices and innovative solutions Subject to the following constraints: • No Content Management System • Limited time • Limited software development / design expertise A centre of expertise in digital information management 9 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study Approach The approach taken was to use: • The design and structure used for previous two workshops • The HTML-Kit authoring tool to edit HTML files • The Xenu link checker Innovations this year include: • • • • • • Use of HTML and CSS validation icons Provide an XHTML Web site Make greater use of CSS Provide a dynamically-generated RSS news feed Provide live usage statistics Access to Web site on PDAs using AvantGo Is this approach typical of yours – incremental development of an existing Web site, and ofintroducing new features and more up-to-date standards? A centre expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk 10 Tools HTML-kit is my preferred editor (and recent version is even better, providing batch validation) A centre of expertise in digital information management 11 The XHTML and CSS icons act as live links The SiteMeter icon gives realtime info on usage www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study Problems Some problems: • When updating pages, links, HTML and spelling were not checking systematically • When using the HTML and CSS checker the browser could check an old, cached version • At one stage the SiteMeter usage statistics service was not available It can be a useful (and therapeutic!) process to talk about problems with your Web site. A centre of expertise in digital information management 12 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study Validating In Batch Checking (e.g. HTML and CSS validation, links, accessibility, etc.) initial files is time-consuming and, for large or continually updated Web sites is not a scalable solution Validation in batch: • Familiar for link-checking • Limited set of tools available for HTML validation (e.g. HTML Validator Pro> • Batch HTML validation validates files generated from PowerPoint, over which I have no control • Bobby batch accessibility check is now a licensed application – so used old copy Can now use HTML-Kit for validating the Web site. A centre of expertise in digital information management 13 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study Netscape (sigh) User feedback revealed that: • £ does not display in Netscape :-( • The Suggestions text box and the Submit button (!) were not displayed in versions of Netscape, due to failure to support XHTML correctly Suggestions Submit A centre of expertise in digital information management 14 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study RSS News Feed The RSS News Feed: • Provides a mechanism for syndication of content • News feed can be viewed on other Web sites or in other applications The News Feed was created: • By transforming (lightly structured) HTML from the news page using a remote service • A static version was also created in case of problems with the live transformation Problems: • The remote service was not always available • The static version was not always in sync with the live version Subsequently the dynamic transformation service A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk became unavailable 15 Case Study Online Bookings The online booking forms: • Were used for booking for the workshop and choosing the parallel sessions The backend processing: • Is not yet fully automated to store the information in a database • Confirmation page did not echo the user’s data • When users followed link to check session, input data may have been lost • Crashed on surnames with spaces and accents • No validation was performed Despite messages on acknowledgements page, some users still expected a separate email confirmation A centre of expertise in digital information management 16 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study What Should Be Done Some simple things can be done for next time: • Use of SSIs or a CMS (or equivalent ) to manage resource fragments • Improve the online booking system to provide: • Validation (which will save time in administration) • Display of user input • Separate confirmation of entry into database But: • I recognise that minor typos, etc. will happen and, as long as they are not critical, can be tolerated • The goal is quality – not perfection A centre of expertise in digital information management 17 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study What About The Processes? What QA processes were used? • Automated tools • Peer review from members of the organising committee • Alternating between Opera, IE and Mozilla when working on Web site • Viewing the Web site on my Palm to: • Allow me to work on the bus, train, etc. • See how the Web site works on a low-spec device See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/ events/workshops/webmaster-2002/qa/> A centre of expertise in digital information management 18 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Study 19 What Else Should I Do? Additional processes I should employ: • • • • • • • • • Reviewing by users Peer-reviewing (others in similar situation) Analysis of logs (esp. failure logs) Usability testing Multiple browser testing Test data with unusual entries for online forms Post-workshop review of Web site Systematic documentation of successes and failures Make case for extra resources, software, etc. to implement improvements • Documenting the architecture of the Web site • Documenting the limitations of the Web site • Preparing these slides! A centre• of … expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Automated Testing Automated Testing: • • • • Should be scalable Only suitable approach for large Web sites Can push (email) information about problems Many free automated testing tools available but: • Will not spot all usability / accessibility problems • Can provide too much information • Comprehensive and configurable testing tools can be expensive A centre of expertise in digital information management 20 www.ukoln.ac.uk Manual Testing Manual Testing: • Can spot usability / accessibility problems • Can make use of one’s community / user base / peers • Can use of key pages which will identify problems which occur elsewhere • Particularly useful for testing new Web sites • “5 users can spot most of your problems” but: • Not suitable for testing large numbers of pages • Quality of feedback may be variable • Often not useful for testing established Web sites A centre of expertise in digital information management 21 www.ukoln.ac.uk Approaches To Automated Testing Automated testing can make use of: • Desktop tools • Web-based tools UKOLN has made use of Web-based testing tools: • Monitor accessibility, HTML, CSS, compliance, page size, links quality, nos. of links, etc. • Benchmarking approach provides comparison with one’s peers • See, for example, <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/ events/conferences/ucisa-tlig-2002/ benchmarking/> A centre of expertise in digital information management 22 www.ukoln.ac.uk Interfaces to Testing Tools (1) Bookmarklets • Embed a testing service into your browser • Available for IE, Netscape, Opera, …browsers • Article at <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/ issue19/web-focus/> • See <http://www.bookmarklets.ac.uk/> or Google search for “bookmarklets”, “accessibility bookmarklets”, etc. A centre of expertise in digital information management 23 www.ukoln.ac.uk Bookmarklets Example Bookmarklets can be accessed: • From the browser’s normal Bookmarks / Favourites Menu • From a side bar • By right-clicking the mouse button A centre of expertise in digital information management 24 www.ukoln.ac.uk Interfaces to Testing Tools (2) URL Interface • UKOLN’s Web site has an interface to various tools provided at the server • Easier to maintain • See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/,tools> for overview <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/,validate> A centre of expertise in digital information management 25 www.ukoln.ac.uk Benchmarking (1) Benchmarking: • We have discussed various tools for checking one’s own site • But how do we compare with our peers? • Can we learn from others best practices? • Can we avoid making mistakes that others have made? Can the methodology to be described be used across your community – e.g. • On a regional basis • On candidates for Best Public Library Web Site award • ByAgovernment auditors for checking e-GIF compliance centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk 26 Benchmarking (2) A centre of expertise in digital information management 27 www.ukoln.ac.uk QA Focus Web Site Benchmarking QA Focus: • • • • Carried out survey of 43 project Web sites Findings freely available Methodology can be applied to other sectors Where best practices found, projects asked to provide a case study • Where problems found, appropriate advice provided A centre of expertise in digital information management 28 www.ukoln.ac.uk HTML Compliance http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/surveys/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 29 W3C’s HTML Validation service is used to record the HTML compliance of project home pages www.ukoln.ac.uk Accessibility Bobby is used to record compliance with W3C WAI guidelines: 24 comply with A 5 comply with AA 21 are not compliant Note that only compliance with guidelines which be monitored bymanagement automated tools is recorded A centrecan of expertise in digital information www.ukoln.ac.uk 30 Repurposing Resources Are pages from project Web sites available in the Internet Archive? Can the project Web site be accessed on a PDA? A centre of expertise in digital information management 31 www.ukoln.ac.uk 404 Pages 404 error pages can provide an important navigational feature for Web sites Tailored 404 Page 14 33% * Rating 3 21% Default 404 Page 28 67% ** Rating 3 21% *** Rating 8 57% **** Rating 0 0% * ** *** **** A centre of expertise in digital information management 32 Basic Simple branding Additional functionality Full functional www.ukoln.ac.uk Critique Limitations of this approach include: • Project Web sites may be: The project deliverable About the project For intra-project communications • The project deliverable may be, say, middleware • Limitations of the analysis tools • Limited number of pages surveyed • … A centre of expertise in digital information management 33 www.ukoln.ac.uk Supporting Best Practices QA Focus is supporting JISC 5/99 projects by providing advice on compliance with standards and best practices, based on the survey findings http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ qa-focus/documents/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 34 www.ukoln.ac.uk Case Studies QA Focus is commissioning case studies: • Document approaches projects have taken in particular areas • Describe the problem area, the approach taken, problems experienced and lessons learnt A centre of expertise in digital information management 35 www.ukoln.ac.uk Conclusions To conclude: • Quality assurance is important • It will grow in importance: e.g. compliance with eGIF guidelines, accessibility legislation, etc. • Automated tools can help • Manual testing is needed to complement automated approaches • Benchmarking can provide information on approaches across communities A centre of expertise in digital information management 36 www.ukoln.ac.uk