www.monash.edu.au

Monash Web WorkshopFacilitator: Dey Alexander

Establishing a quality assurance process for your website

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Why you need a quality assurance process

• We publish too many pages with errors• We don’t pay enough attention to the

quality of our web pages• How much more attention is paid to the

quality of printed brochures and document?

• Why is the quality of the latter always treated more seriously?

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Some of the errors on our pages

• Content errors • Broken links• Markup errors• Cross-browser compatibility problems• Accessibility problems• Broken scripts/SSIs

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Example – content errors

• A page with no title, and no content!(See http://www.education.monash.edu.au/units/edf6114/)

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Example – broken links

• Summary of link problems on the Monash A-Z index(see http://www.monash.edu.au/a-z.html)

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Example – markup errors

• Markup errors on CSSE home page(see http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/)

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Example – cross-browser compatibility problems

• This page displays OK in Netscape 4.79 but not in Mozilla 1.5(see http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/cheq/)

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Example – accessibility problems

• This page is not accessible to screenreaders or text browsers(see http://www.monash.edu.au/oce/)

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Example – script/SSI problems

• An error in the path to the footer SSI(see http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/)

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Establishing QA processes

• What processes are needed?– Content review process– Design process– Maintenance process

• Communication issues– Communicate processes to ALL people publishing

to your website– Provide training and support so that processes are

understood and used– Establish expectation/culture of accountability for

quality of individual pages

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QA for content development

• What should be included in this process?

– Self-review

– Peer-review

– Content approval

– Determine a maintenance cycle

• See Web Content Quality Assurance Procedure

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QA for new design/development

• What should be included in the process?– Markup validation– Link integrity check– Metadata check (title, keywords, description)– Content check (text, images, etc.)– Accessibility check– Check page size (key pages)– Cross-browser check– Screen resolution check– Script/SSI check

• See Web Design Quality Assurance Procedure

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QA for maintenance

• What should be included in the process?– Markup validation

– Link integrity check

– Check content changes

– Accessibility check• See

Web Maintenance Quality Assurance Procedure

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Questions?

• Reminder– Please add your name to attendance book

– Please complete your feedback form