1. Auditing and Evaluating Web Sites Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.

2. 2 Exercises Hands-on exercises to evaluate: Your organisation’s home page Your organisation’s Web site Your organisation’s Web server How your Web site looks with different browsers The number of links to your Web site The number of pages indexed by AltaVista The accessibility of your Web site The number of visitors to a Web site You will also learn: How to extend your browser About WebWatch surveys of communities

3. 3 Dr HTML A single page can be evaluated for free by DrHTML A licensed version is needed to analyse an entire Web site

4. 4 NetMechanic Did your organisational home page pass the NetMechanic test? If not: What problems did it find? How would you fix the problems? How would you ensure the problems did not reappear? Are the problems likely to occur throughout the Web site

5. 5 WebSiteGarage WebSiteGrage seems similar to NetMechanic In addition it can tell you how many Web sites point to your page

6. 6 Dr Watson Dr Watson also provides a range of checks

7. 7 LinkAlarm LinkAlarm sends regular emails about broken links on your Web site Cost is 1c / page (£36 / year for 100 page site) Check cost at http://my.linkalarm.com/ 359320384/points/Calculator

8. 8 This Old Mouse With This Old Mouse you have to pay for a check of your Web site. Is it worth the money?

9. 9 HTTP-Info UKOLN provide a number of WebWatch services: HTTP-info Doc-info robots.txt- checker

10. 10 InternetSeer InternetSeer will provide periodic checks that your Web server is running (Used by UKOLN to check the Cultivate Interactive Web magazine)

11. 11 AnyBrowser can be used to check how your browser would look for browsers which support a particular level of HTML Browser Checkers

12. 12 DejaVu provides access to a number of browser emulators

13. 13 Wap Phones and Web TVs How will your Web site look to non-traditional devices? http://www.wapdrive.net/ shropshirelibraries NB: Not a Web-based service

14. 14 Bobby (1) The Bobby Web service can check the accessibility of individual Web pages

15. 15 Bobby (2) The Bobby Java application can check the accessibility of Web sites

16. 16 WAVE WAVE is another accessibility checker

17. 17 Statistics Web-based statistical services such as SiteMeter can give immediate feedback on user visits

18. 18 LinkPopularity LinkPopularity will tell you how many pages link to your Web site

19. 19 What’s Related Netscape’s What’s Related service is normally used through the Netscape browser

20. 20 Browser Extensions Browser extensions allow Web services (such as those we have seen) to be included on your Web browser You won’t have to go to a Web site to use the service! http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/ issue19/web-focus/ http://www.bookmarklets.com/tools/data/index.phtml

21. 21 LinkTool and Usable Web LinkTool and Usable Web provide links to services for evaluating your Web site

22. 22 Checking Performance E-Test Suite and Keynote can be used to check the perfomance of your Web site – at a price! Is it worth trying the one week trial? Note also: www.somix.com www.entuity.com

23. 23 WebWatch Various surveys of UK University Web sites have been carried out

24. 24 Let’s Not Forget The Users Web site evaluation should include user evaluation Not included in this session Web-based evaluation forms may help: http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar/read.php?i=3590 http://www.perseus.com/softwareprod/ ssexpress_index.html http://www.ibid.co.uk/scripts/index.asp http://zaplet.zaplet.com/index.jsp http://www.cgi-world.com/pollit.html See also

25. 25 Let’s Not Forget The Users See

26. 26 Question Time Any questions? Q

27. 27 Discussion – 1 Should you use auditing and evaluating tools across your Web site Should you buy access to licensed tools? Should you buy a service (e.g. see http://www.webaudits.net/)?

28. 28 Discussion – 2 Is there a need for a WebWatch-type survey across public library Web sites? If so: Who should do it? How comprehensive should it be? How would it be funded?