Transcript MS PowerPoint 97/2000 format

QA For Web Sites:
Approaches To Testing
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, BA2 7AY
Email
[email protected]
URL
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
UKOLN is supported by:
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Automated Testing
Automated Testing:
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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
2
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
3
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
4
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Benchmarking (2)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
5
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Peer Review
Peer Review:
• “Give me comments on my Web site and I’ll also
test yours”
• Can help in community-building
• Particularly useful for programmes in which
project Web sites being developed at same time
But:
• Can be difficult in processing unstructured
responses
• Need to manage process
A centre of expertise in digital information management
6
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Managing Peer Reviews
UKOLN is developed a peer review system to support
its advisory service for NOF-digi projects
A centre of expertise in digital information management
7
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Conclusions
To conclude:
• There is probably a need to make use of both
automated and manual approaches to testing
• You can use these approaches within your own
department / organisation
• There are advantages to be gained in working
with one’s peers
• How should we do this?
A centre of expertise in digital information management
8
www.ukoln.ac.uk