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After you put the finishing touches on a set of pages (but before you go public on the Web for the world to see), it's time to put them through their paces. Testing is the best way to control a site's quality.
Thorough testing must include content review, analysis of HTML syntax and semantics, link checks, and various sanity checks to make doubly sure that what you built is what you really wanted.
Make a list and check it — twice
Your design should include a road map (often called a site map) that tells you what's where in every individual HTML document in your site and the relationships among its pages. If you're really smart, you kept this map up-to-date as you moved from design to implementation.
A site map provides the foundation for a test plan. Use your map to
- Investigate and check every page and every link systematically.
- Make sure everything works as you think it should — and that what you built has some relationship (however surprising) to your design.
- Define the list of things to check as you go through the testing process.
- Check everything (at least) twice.
Master text mechanics
By the time any collection of Web pages comes together, you're looking at thousands of words, if not more. Yet many Web pages get published without a spell check, which is why we suggest — no, demand — that you include a spell check as a step when testing and checking your materials. Many HTML tools, such as FrontPage, HomeSite, and Dreamweaver, include built-in spell checkers, and that's the first spell-check method you should use. These HTML tools also know how to ignore the HTML markup and just check your text.
You can use your favorite word processor to spell check your pages. Before you check them, add HTML markup to your custom dictionary, and pretty soon the spell checker runs more smoothly — getting stuck only on URLs and other strange strings that occur from time to time in HTML files.
Make your content mirror your world
When it comes to content, the best way to keep things fresh is to keep up with the world in which your site resides. As things change, disappear, or pop up in that external world, similar events should occur on your Web site. Since something new is always happening, and old ways or beliefs fading away — even in studies of ancient cultures or beliefs — if you report on what's new and muse on what's fading from view, you'll provide constant reasons for your visitors to keep coming back for more. What's more, if you can accurately and honestly reflect (and reflect upon) what's happening in your world of interest, you'll grab loyalty and respect as well as continued patronage.
Look for trouble in all the right places
You and a limited group of users should thoroughly test your site before you share it with the rest of the world — and more than once. This process is called beta testing, and it's a bona fide, five-star must for a well-built Web site, especially if it's for business use. When the time comes to beta-test your site, bring in as rowdy and refractory a crowd as you can find. If you have picky customers (or colleagues who are pushy, opinionated, or argumentative), be comforted knowing that you have found a higher calling for them: Such people make ideal beta-testers — if you can get them to cooperate.
 | Don't wait till the very last minute to test your Web site. Sometimes the glitches found during the beta-test phase can take weeks to fix. Take heed: Test early and test often, and you'll thank us in the long run! |
When you grind through your completed Web pages, checking your links and your HTML, remember that automated help is available. If you visit the W3C HTML Validator, you'll be well on your way to finding computerized assistance to make your HTML clean and standards-compliant.
Beta-testers use your pages in ways you never imagined possible. They interpret your content to mean things you never intended in a million years. They drive you crazy and crawl all over your cherished beliefs and principles. And they do all this before your users do!
These colleagues also find gotchas, big and small, that you never knew existed. They catch typos that word processors couldn't. They tell you things you left out and things that you should have omitted. They give you a fresh perspective on your Web pages, and they help you see them from extreme points of view.
Let user feedback feed your site
Even after you publish your site, testing never ends. You may not think of user feedback as a form (or consequence) of testing, but it represents the best reality check your Web pages are ever likely to get, which is why doing everything you can — including offering prizes or other tangibles — to get users to fill out HTML forms on your Web site is a good idea.
This reality check is also why reading all feedback you get is a must. Carefully consider the feedback that you read and then implement the ideas that actually bid fair to improve your Web offerings. It's a really good idea to respond to feedback with personal e-mail, to make sure your users know you're reading what they're saying. If you don't have time to do that, make some!
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