Quality Assurance For Museum Web Sites: Examples Of Checking Tools

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Quality Assurance For Museum Web SitesExamples
Of Checking Tools

• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath, BA2 7AY

Email B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.ac.
uk/
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Examples Of Checking Tools

• Types of tools
• Desktop (standalone or integrated with authoring
  tool)
• Server
• Web-based
• Integrated with browser
• Combination
• Tools may also be
• Freely available
• Licensed
• Licensed with limited functionality available for
  free

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Desktop Tools

• Examples of desktop tools
• HTML checker integrated with authoring tool
• Standalone HTML checkers
• Link checkers

Xenu Link Sleuth link checker, free from
lthttp//home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.htmlgt
CSE HTML Validator licensed and free versions
from lthttp//www.htmlvalidator.com/gt.
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Server-based Tools

• Server-based tools
• Often licensed
• Can be configured to run automatically (unlike
  normal use of desktop checkers)
• Some desktop checking tools are also available as
  server products

NIST have a number of server-based tools which
are designed to support usability testing. See
lthttp//zing.ncsl.nist.gov/WebTools/tech.htmlgt.
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Web-based Tools

• Web-based Tools
• Provide a Web interface to testing services
• No software to install
• Many useful free Web-based services available

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Integrated With Browser

• Bookmarklets
• Typically provide access to Web-based services
• Easier to use due to integration with browser
• Can be useful for Web authors

• See
• lthttp//www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue34/web-focus/gt
• lthttp//www.bookmarklets.com/gt
• lthttp//www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/gt
• lthttp//www.accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/acces
  sibility-checking-favelets.aspgt

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Combined Approach

• A simple approach used in UKOLN is to provide
  access to checking services by appending a phrase
  to any URL. For example
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/,validate
• will validate the page
• This is based on a simple Apache server-side
  redirect

See lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/pa
pers/iadis-2003/poster/gt
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Commercial Approach

• Commercial Testing Tools
• Examples given have been based on freely
  available tools
• Is there a need to consider use of licensed
  testing tools?
• What additional functionality do such tools
  provide?
• See Benchmarking exercises for examples of
  commercial testing tools

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Questions

• Any questions?