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Guide 7. How do I create my website?

Testing and evaluation (screen 15 of 17)

Testing your website

There are a lot of things that can go wrong with a website, and it's those little things that can annoy users and drive them away. So it's essential that you test your website thoroughly.

If possible:

• Test on different browser versions.
• Test on both Macintosh and PCs with a combination of browsers.
• Test on slow and fast computers.
• Test using different colour levels.
• Test to ensure that your site does what you expect, regardless of the hardware and software of the user.

Testing should be carried out by as many people within your organisation as possible, preferably by those who have not designed the site.

Bring in testers from elsewhere. Get people outside the organisation on old computers and slow modems to test it.

If you have a computer network, your site should be made available internally for testing.

Test for what?

Ask these questions when you test:

• Is the content accurate and up-to-date?
• Do graphics and text appear where they should?
• Is the text easy to read?
• Do all the hot spots on screen respond the way they should when you click on them?
• Do the links work?
• Do the screens load fast enough? If they are too slow, you may need to reduce the size or number of images or multimedia items on the screen, or smarten up the programming for the screen.
• Can users find their way around the site easily?
• Are the navigation links descriptive?
• Is information where users would expect to find it?

This testing should not stop when you go online. Log onto your site frequently to make sure that it still does what it should.

You might like to try Dr Watson (1) to tune up your site for free.

Testing and modifying

There is a great temptation to change a site while it is online, which means the changes become public before being properly tested.

It's not unusual for your development and modification process to cause the server to crash, stopping access to your site, and to any others held on that server! Such crashing is not an uncommon occurrence during development. Although it may not worry you that much, it will certainly worry your users and those responsible for any other sites or data hosted by your server.

Notify users in advance if a server will be out of action for testing, and try to test during times of lowest use.

Develop and test your website rigorously, by all means, but refrain from jeopardising access to other sites in doing so.

Evaluation

There are several ways that the use of your site can be evaluated automatically.

For example, if you have surfed the Net you may have noticed on some Web screens a counter that states that you are visitor number 1,234,567 to that site. This software is not so much for your benefit as to provide important information for the Web manager. Of course, if you have very few visitors, a counter that indicates this could be counterproductive (if you'll pardon the pun).

Similar software, called a cookie, can tell which screens users visit. You can discover what links they used to get to and leave your site. You can even obtain information about the user's computer and operating system. In fact, this information is obtained about you almost every time you go to a site.

What do you need to know?

Numerous statistics packages are available to help you monitor your site usage. It is well worth analysing several packages before deciding which one to go with.

You need to know what sort of information you require and to look for a package to meet those needs.

• Do you need to track user pathways?
• Are users responding to your offline promotional strategies?
• Which parts of your site are attracting visitors and which parts are not?
• What software and hardware are your visitors using?

If you're looking for something very simple and which is free, have a look at StatCounter (2).

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References

1. Dr Watson http://watson.addy.com/
2. StatCounter http://www.statcounter.com/

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