1. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk QA And The IWMW Web Site: A Case Study (flaws and all) Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY Email B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ UKOLN is supported by:

2. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 The IWMW Web Site

3. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 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

4. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4 Approach The approach taken was to continue 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 introducing new features and more up-to-date standards?

5. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 5 Tools HTML-kit is my preferred editor The XHTML and CSS icons act as live links The SiteMeter icon gives realtime info on usage The XHTML and CSS icons act as live links The SiteMeter icon gives realtime info on usage

6. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 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

7. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 7 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 – see Batch HTML validation validates files generated from PowerPoint, over which I have no control Bobby batch accessibility check is now a licensed application (but used copy downloaded in the past)

8. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 Maintenance When creating new pages, made use of existing files and sometimes did not update the, metadata, etc. The location of certain files was not obvious (the size of the Web site has now outgrown the original navigational links)

9. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9 Netscape (sigh) User feedback revealed that: £ does not display in Netscape :-( The Suggestions text box and the Submit button (!) were not displayed in Mozilla, due to failure to support XHTML correctly Suggestions Submit

10. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 10 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

11. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 11 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

12. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 12 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 should I: Recognise that minor typos, etc. will happen and, as long as they are not critical, can be tolerated?

13. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13 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

14. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 14 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! …

15. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15 Questions Any questions?