July 26, 2006
Quality Assurance and Testing + Testing
What To Check
- Clarify natural language usage.
- Grammar Checks
- Punctuation
- Spelling
- Updating Content – make sure valid.
- Quotes/Sources properly referenced
- Define Headings/Subheadings (possibly add content if appropriate)
- Break up content, use proper paragraphing and headings etc.
How
- Spell Check
- Read out loud
- Get a Beta Reader
- Check the bibliograpghy and referencing standards
- Parapgraph your work
- Use clear headings such as the H1 tag
Why?
- It makes the content readible and accessible to all readers.
- It looks more professional and reliable.
- If pages are referenced by others, they will be able to source your work more easily and be more likely to use the information that you have provided.
This Information was gathered in response to the post at :
http://c476.edublogs.org/2006/07/27/web-site-testing-what-how-why/
February 14, 2006
Information Architechture : Summaries and Examples.
Flat:
This is a kind of architecture that is often used for simpler sites. Each page may be accessed from every other page on the site. This kind of architechture model is also known as a ‘monocline grouping’.
www.golflink.com www.neopets.com
Index:
For all intents and purposes, an Index is a flat model that also has some kind of beginning page to start off with. These are good models for sites that require a lot of Data to be ordered. An example of this model would actually be a phonebook or a thesaurus.
Hub and Spoke/Daisy:
This model has many different links, but they are multiple linear links. That is, there are many places to go on the site, but you must return to the home page after accessing one of the paths to access another.
Strict Hierarchy:
This is a model of a site that has many levels of pages, that cannot be accessed without visiting the page above it. For example, if my homepage has a link that says ‘Cheese’, that links to a page called ‘Tasty Nachos’, and a link that says ‘Beef’ that links to a page called ‘Nature’s Tuna’, then I cannot access the ‘Tasty Nachos’ from any of the pages excep through clicking ‘Cheese’ on the parent page.
Often though, this kind of heirarchy is too rigid to allow for natural, intuitive use by people that go to the site, so it is often best to be using a Multi-Dimensional hierarchy so that things can be slighly more loosely placed and cross referenced.
www.hoyts.com www.games.ll.net
Multi Dimensional Hierarchy:
This site would be one of the more flexible that are avaliable. As with the hierarchy, the site may have many categories that have parent pagesand sub pages, but unlike the strict hierarchy, these pages may be accessed in many different ways. Everything has a track to almost every other page. Let’s use me and my journal as an example.
Just say you are trying to find the journal of Rachi_Chan on Livejournal.com. You may go directly to www.livejournal.com/~rachi_chan. You may go to Livejournal.com and type rachi_chan into the search engine, then click on the link that comes up. You might even be looking at the journal of Heddi(www.livejournal.com/~Heddi), then click on the link to Heddi’s friend’s page to see a recent entry by Rachi_Chan. There are countless ways to get to Rachi_Chan’s Journal.
Okay, Okay. I know this is almost the same example we got given in class but, hey! I like livejournal! Why not be narcissistic and use my own journal as an example while demonstrating that I understand what a Multi-Dimensional hierarchy is?
www.livejournal.com www.amazon.com
Search:
If you’d like to be technical, Search isn’t really a model. It’s actually something you stick into a site to find a particular page. In a way I suppose it’s really indirect navigation. Instead of going from ‘Home’ to ‘Cheese’ to ‘Tasty Nachos’ then ‘Different kinds of seasoning’, why not go to the search engine on the homepage and type in ‘nacho seasoning’ or something similar?
All in one:
This is the kind of site that encompasses all of the different elements of the above, or from what I gather at least some different features from the other models. Search might be exempt, due to it’s lack of actually being a model.
I got this information from:
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/ia_models.cfm
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/information_architecture.cfm
