2.8 Testing and evaluation

All sites need to be tested.

Testing ensures that the site really is accessible and usable. It also shows up flaws in the content.

Test it with your users.

• When you are designing your site, test it with a sample of your users.
  
  
• When you make major changes, remember to test these with your users too.
  
  
• Provide a facility on your site for user feedback so they can give you their views on the site and tell you about anything that is causing problems.

There are also resources that you can use to check the accessibility and usability of your Web site, for example:

• Bobby (http://www.mardiros.net/bobby-accessibility-tool.html) [Opens in new browser window];
  
  
• WebXACT (http://webxact.watchfire.com/) [Opens in new browser window];
  
  
• Validator - a free service that checks that html documents conform to W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recommendations and other standards (http://validator.w3.org) [Opens in new browser window];
  
  
• W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) provides a list of such tools (http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/existingtools.html) [Opens in new browser window].

While testing your site don't make it publicly available.

• You can create the site on your own computer and look at the html files in a browser, without having to place it on a server.
  
  
• If it is placed on a server people are unlikely to find it unless you have marketed it first.
  
  
• If you have a current site, don't make the links active which connect the new sections to the public parts of your site.

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© Copyright for this site is held by Contact a Family and the Information Society Research and Consultancy Group, School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences, Northumbria University. Site published February 2003. Last updated October 2006. Review date October 2007.