Transcript QA For Web Sites: Talk 2: What Can Go Wrong?

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.
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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Out-of-date content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
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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
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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
• …
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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)
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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)
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Note As well as traditional hyperlinks (and images) Web pages
may also have links to JavaScript and CSS files. You will need
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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/
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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)
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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
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