UKOLN Hands-On Session For Leicester Spring School in New Media: Benchmarking Web Sites

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UKOLN Hands-On Session For Leicester Spring
School in New MediaBenchmarking Web Sites
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conference
s/museums-web-2005/

• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath

• Session Aims
• To discover how your Web site compares with your
  peers
• To discover examples of best practices mistakes
  to avoid
• To learn how you can a benchmarking approach

Email B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.ac.
uk/
UKOLN is supported by
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Timetable

• 1150 Introduction To Benchmarking Web Sites
• 1210 Hands-on Benchmarking Exercise
• 1300 Lunch
• 1400 Hands-on Benchmarking Exercise (cont)
• 1430 Report Back
• 1440 Discussion
• 1450 What Next?
• 1500 Workshop ends

NOTE Times are subject to change
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A Bit About Me...

• Brian Kelly
• UK Web Focus
• Based in UKOLN a national focus of expertise in
  digital information management
• Funded by JISC and MLA
• Advises HE / FE and MLA communities on effective
  use of the Web
• Based at the University of Bath
• Involved in Web since 1993, while working in
  Computing Service at University of Leeds
• Links with IT Service Library communities

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A Bit About You...
D

• In small groups address the questions
• Who are you, where do you work and what do you
  do?
• What do you want to get out of this workshop?

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Your Expectations
Learning
Best practices
Sharing
Your Interests expectations
Quality
Finances
Testing
Staffing
Checking
Constraints
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About Benchmarking

• Benchmarking is about
• Sharing
• Learning from best practices
• Learning from mistakes others have made
• Note that in this benchmarking workshop
• We dont intend to have league tables
• No prizes for the best
• We should recognise that
• Organisations have differing priorities
• Organisations have different levels of resources
• Organisations have different starting points
• Organisations have differing organisational
  politics

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Session Aims

• This session
• Hands-on exercises with discussions
• By the end of the session you should
• Be able to benchmark your Web site in relation to
  other sites in your community
• Have had hands-on experience in using auditing
  and evaluating tools
• Be aware of common problems
• Be aware of how a quality assurance methodology
  can help to avoids problems
• Be in a position to decide whether to adopt this
  methodology in your organisation, region, sector,
  

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Todays Exercises
E

• You will
• Use a set of Web-based tools for evaluating a
  variety of aspects of your Web site
• Work in small groups and share your findings and
  discuss the implications
• This session
• Encourages collaboration and sharing
• Is not meant to be competitive!

Now open the exercises handout
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Todays Exercises (2)
D

• In the hands-on exercises your evaluated
• The size of your organisations home page
• The accessibility of your home page
• The validation of your home page
• How popular your Web site is
• How many sites link to it
• How well-indexed it is
• How your Web site looks with different browsers
• Etc.

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The Size of Your Home Page
Ex. 1.1

• You can find out the size of your home page using
  various tools

• NetMechanic
• Bobby

http//www.netmechanic.com/
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Does it Work?
Ex. 1

• It is useful to check key pages for
  accessibility, validation and functionality
• Web page validators include
• NetMechanic
• Dr Watson
• DrHTML - single pages only

http//watson.addy.com/
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Is it Accessible?
Ex. 2

• The Bobby Web service can check the accessibility
  of individual Web pages
• The Bobby Java application can check the
  accessibility of Web sites (now licensed
  software)
• WAVE is a (better?) alternative to Bobby

http//bobby.watchfire.com/
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Are There Broken Links?
Ex. 2.6

• Monitoring the number of broken links on your Web
  site is very important

• Desktop and Web-based tools are available
• Xenu
• LinkAlarm
• Linkguard
• Nodeworks
• NetMechanic
• SiteValet

http//www.linkalarm.com/
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How Popular Is Your Site?
Ex. 3.13.23.3

• There are a number of services that will tell you
  how many pages link to your Web site

• LinkPopularity
• WebSiteGarage
• Netscapes Whats Related service is used through
  the Netscape browser
• Google infoURL search

http//www.linkpopularity.com/
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What About Other Browsers?
Ex. 4
http//www.anybrowser.com/

• Does your home page (and Web site) work in
• Netscape very popular in UK HE)
• IE (the most widely used browser)
• Significant (all?) versions and platforms of
  above
• Lynx (text browser which may be used by visually
  impaired)
• AnyBrowser
• DejaVu

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Conclusion

• Different tools give different results and
  results can be limited. The results should be
  analysed carefully - like statistics
• Independent testing services can be beneficial
• Comparison is useful
• However a league table is not enough, for this
  type of evaluation. To have a point there should
  be follow up action

Any questions?