Quality Assurance For Museum Web Sites: Developing A QA Framework

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Quality Assurance For Museum Web
SitesDeveloping A QA Framework

• 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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Checking In Context

• Scenario
• We are aware of potential problems
• We are aware of tools to spot problems
• We are aware of the limitations of the tools
• We are aware of the need for manual testing

We also have a limited budget and limited
resources!
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What Is Our Philosophy?

• Anal Retentive
• Regular testing
• Fixing errors immediately
• Fixing legacy resources
• It's A Technological Problem
• Use state-of-the-art CMS
• Automated updating of broken resources (Tidy to
  convert HTML files to compliant XHTML)
• Business Approach
• Scoping extent of problem
• Prioritising problem-fixing
• Addressing workflow
• Defining our expectations

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From QC To QA

• Quality Control
• Procedures for spotting problems
• Problems then fixed
• Quality Assurance
• Documented policies
• Use of appropriate systems which can implement
  policies
• Procedures for spotting deviations from policies
• Fixing workflow so problem doesn't reoccur
• Audit trails

If the policy is use of XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0,
then MS Word is an inappropriate authoring
tool If you fix an error, will the authoring tool
put it back in?
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Why We Need QA

• Consider
• If the policy is use of XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0,
  then MS Word is an inappropriate authoring tool
• If you fix an error, will the authoring tool put
  it back in?
• Should you fix broken links from published
  documents if the policy is not to change history
  in this way?
• An audit trail can help spot trends such as
  increase in errors due to
• Changes in workflow
• Changes in technologies
• Staffing changes

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QA Policies and Procedures

• QA Policies
• Should define the standards and best practices
  you seek to implement
• Should be linked to the technical framework used
  to implement the policies
• May describe allowable exceptions
• QA Procedures
• Should define the procedures used to check
  compliance

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Example

• QA Policy Web Standards
• The Web site will be based on XHTML 1.0 and CSS
  2.0.
• The Web site will use PHP to merge XHTML
  fragments into an XHTML template
• The Web site will access a backend database,
  which also uses XHTML
• Authors should use an HTML editor which does not
  create proprietary extensions or inhibit use of
  clean XHTML. HTML-kit is recommended.
• Resources derived from MS Word/PowerPoint need
  not be updated to valid XHTML.

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Example

• QA Procedures Web Standards
• When creating or updating resources the ,validate
  tool should be used
• When creating or updating stylesheets or
  embedding stylesheets in HTML resources the
  ,cssvalidate tool should be used
• At least quarterly a recursive validation of the
  Web site should be carried out using ,rvalidate
  
• An audit trail of the quarterly survey should be
  published and comments provided on any problems

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Further Information

• Further information on the QA Focus methodology
• Developing a Quality Culture For Digital Library
  Programmes, EUNIS 2003 Conference,
  lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/paper
  s/eunis-2003/gt
• Deployment Of Quality Assurance Procedures For
  Digital Library Programmes, IADIS WWW/Internet
  2003 Conference, lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus
  /documents/papers/iadis-2003/gt
• Summary of the QA Focus Methodology, QA Focus,
  lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefi
  ngs/briefing-30gt

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Conclusions

• To conclude
• Testing will be needed
• But
• What do we test?
• How often?
• How do we go about fixing things?