Best Practices for the Web

Nothing will frustrate your audience more than broken and unavailable sites. Even the most stable web pages should be viewed and tested on a regular basis.

The power of the internet is the quick and easy availability of information. Content must be continuously updated. Users who encounter obviously outdated material on your pages will view your content as much less reliable. Special effort should be made to keep timely content up to date. Calendars, special event listings, and posted deadlines should be carefully monitored. Indicating when a web page was last updated should only be done if the content of that page is time or date sensitive.

Test your site each time you make updates or add content to a web page.

Test your site in any new browser versions, including links, graphics, animations and behaviors such as rollovers and effects.

Remember to routinely test your site from off campus and outside of the development environment. Only testing your site on a speedy T1 line won't tell you much about the experience of your dial-up audience. Browsers often cache elements of web pages that can camoflage new problems.

Testing resources:

• Viewable with any browser: Testing & Considerations
  http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/abdesign3.html
• Evolt.org Browser testing kit:
  http://www.evolt.org/article/Browser_testing_list/20/548/

Usability resources:

• Indiana University - User Experience Group:
  http://www.indiana.edu/~usable/
• Center for Usability in Design Assessment (CUDA)
  http://www.csulb.edu/cuda/
• Nielson Norman Group: "Strategies to enhance the user experience"
  http://www.nngroup.com/
• Jakob Nielsen (the 'guru' of usability)
  http://www.useit.com/
• IBM - Ease of Use/Design
  http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/56

Be aware of links pointing to your pages, as well as those within your site. When authoring, test your pages often. There's nothing worse than linking to a page that doesn't exist. Most HTML editors have the capability to check the links within your site.

The University Link Checker will provide a list of URL's that someone tried - and failed to access. Test your site at: http://www.utah.edu/uwebresources/search_engine/link_check.html

Using the results of the Link Checker, you may want to create a re-direct forwarding the user from the broken URL to the correct one. It's good practice to create a re-direct when moving or deleting a page. Your server administrator can assist in the creation of re-directs.

The HTML code to automatically forward a web page to a new URL is:
     <meta http-equiv=”Refresh”
     content=”0; URL=http://www.newpage.utah.edu/index.html”>

Insert the above HTML code into the header of the source code of the web page
from which you are re-directing the user. No special tag needs to be placed into the source code of the web page to which you are re-directing the user.

To pause the meta refresh before re-directing, set the content="x" to the number of seconds you wish the pause to be. This is useful if you want to display an interim page alerting the user that they are being re-directed to a new URL.

A visitor to your website may experience a variety of problems accessing your pages. Typically if there is a problem accessing a page, a 404 error will be displayed. Reasons why a visitor may see an error page include:

• Visitor has misspelled the URL.
• You have removed the page.
• You have changed the path of the page.
• You have changed name of the page.
• Any other syntax error.

Some web server software allows for customizable error message pages. A customized error page will notify a visitor if an error has occurred, but retains the look and feel of your site. Including basic navigation and search functions on your customized error page can help your visitor try again, and maximize the quality of their experience. Contact your server administrator for information on customizing error message pages.

• Keeping a website running requires the skills and experience of many people. Anticipate as many contingencies as possible, and have a plan in place.
• Know who your web server administrator is, and the location of your host machine.
• Keep handy a list of contact information for your network administrator, web server administrator, programmers, and others involved in the operation of your site.
• Keep a record of people with access to server files.
• Delete access permission and change any group passwords when personnel changes take place.
• Set emergency procedures and establish at least one back-up webmaster with appropriate permissions in case your primary webmaster becomes unavailable.