HTML, XHTML & CSS

Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Exterminate Web Bugs
a small change — a new phone number or address, a single product listing,
a change of name or title to reflect a promotion — and you won’t go through
the whole formal testing process for “just one little thing.”
That’s perfectly understandable — but one thing inevitably leads to another,
and so on. Plus, if you solicit feedback, chances are good that you’ll learn
something that points out a problem you’d never noticed or considered
before. Schedule periodic site reviews, even if you’ve made no big changes
or updates since the last review. Information grows stale, things change, and
tiny errors have a way of creeping in as one small change succeeds another.
If there’s any code on your site (JavaScript, Active Server Pages, Java Server
Pages, or whatever), you’ll want to give it a thorough workout and inspection,
too. A pool-shooting buddy of ours who works in quality control for a major
technology company was recently assigned to review a Web site built to provide
real-time security and error information to developers who use its products.
He told me that it was obvious the developers didn’t try everything, in
every possible combination, at the same time — with a rueful shake of his
head — and that when he did so, he broke things they didn’t know could be
broken. Better to do this yourself (or hire somebody to do it for you) and fix
it in advance than to pay the price of public humiliation.
Just as you take your car in for an oil change or replace your air-conditioning
filter, plan to check your Web site regularly. Most big organizations we talk
to do this every three months or so; others do it more often. Although you
might think you have no bugs to catch, errors to fix, or outdated information
to refresh, you’ll often be surprised by what a review turns up. Make this part
of your routine, and your surprises will be less painful — and require less
work to remedy!
Foster User Feedback
Who better to tell you what works and what doesn’t than those who use (and
hopefully, depend on) your site? Who better to say what’s not needed and
what’s missing? But if you want user feedback to foster site growth and evolution,
you must not only ask for it, you have to encourage it to flow freely
and honestly in your direction, then act on that feedback to keep those wellsprings
working.
Even after you publish your site, testing never ends. (Are you having flashbacks
to high school or college yet? We sure are.) 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.
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