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Instructions on completing quality assurance (QA) checkpoints

Workshop structure

  1. Introductions

  2. Why perform a QA process?

  3. QA processes:
    The checks needed to complete a maintenance and design QA process.

  4. How to complete the checkpoints:
    Using pages volunteered by participants we'll complete each check.

QA processes

Maintenance QA process

When updating a page complete the following QA checkpoints:

  • Markup validation
  • Link integrity check
  • Accessibility evaluation
  • Content review
  • Metadata review

Maintenance QA checklist (doc 44kb | rtf 56kb).

Design QA process

When creating a new page complete the following QA checkpoints:

  • Markup validation
  • Link integrity check
  • Accessibility evaluation
  • Content review
  • Metadata review
  • Page size check
  • Cross-browser evaluation
  • Script and SSI check
  • Screen resolution check

Design QA checklist (doc 49kb | rtf 67kb).

How to complete the checkpoints

Markup validation

  • Use the W3C validator to check your markup. You can install this as a bookmarklet/favelet to make validation a smoother process.
  • Correct any errors identified by the markup validator.

    Note: When validating a page always fix the first error found then upload and revalidate your page. This is recommended because the first error the validator finds may be causing a number of the other errors so when it is fixed these other errors may also disappear.

  • If you have made changes to a stylesheet, use the W3C stylesheet validator to check the stylesheet syntax
  • Correct any errors identified by the CSS validator.

Resources

Link integrity check

  • Use the W3C link checker to test the integrity of your links.
  • Perform a manual check (by clicking on each link) to make sure the links is pointing to the correct content.
  • Correct any errors as identified by the link checker or found during the manual check.

Broken fragments

The W3C link checker will find one error (Code 200: There are broken fragments which must be fixed.) in every Monash pages in the new template. This is caused by the "skip to content" accessibility feature in the templates. Please ignore this error message as there it is a bug in the W3C link checker and not the template.

Resources

Accessibility evaluation

  • Use Webaim's The WAVE (or an alternative tool) to check for accessibility problems.

    Note: The WAVE uses icons to highlight potential accessibility issues. You will need to be familiar with the WAVE's icons to be able to use the tool effectively. Certain icons refer to one or more Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG1.0), which are produced by the W3C. The Checklist of Checkpoints for WCAG1.0 is a helpful resource for learning more about particular checkpoints and the techniques required to pass the checkpoint.

  • Ensure structural markup is used correctly.
  • Ensure all images, which aren't purely decorative, have appropriate text alternatives.
  • Ensure tables (layout or data) used and marked up correctly.
  • Ensure all form labels are explicitly associated with their controls.
  • Ensure all accessibility features of templates are in place.
  • Correct as required.

Resources

Content review

If content has not been reviewed or is being updated, use content quality assurance procedure.

Metadata review

  • Check to ensure page has:
    • An appropriate page title.
    • A short description/summary of the content.
    • A set of keywords that identify the content. Think about the type of words that people might type into a search engine to find your content.
  • All pages MUST have a page title
  • All key pages (home, section home pages, etc.) should have descriptive metadata.
  • Remove or populate empty metadata tags.

Resources

Page size check

Use this step for navigation pages (home pages, section home pages) only

  • Use Netmechanic to check page size.
  • Aim for page size of 40kb or less. Pages containing a large number of images that haven't been optimised for the web will increase the page size.

Resources

  • Netmechanic (enter URL at step 1, and go to step 4. Check "load time" on results page, and follow link to check "total page size").
  • Check your site provides an alternative access point to Netmechanic.

Cross-browser evaluation

Extensive cross-browser testing of the Monash web templates was performed at the time they were developed. There are some known issues with minor release versions of Netscape 6 and 7. To ensure you have not introduced any further problems:

  • Check in IE6, Mozilla 1.6 and Netscape 4.7x
  • Correct any errors

Resources

Script and SSI check

Run script in a way that tests all functionality. For example if a form is being tested, enter data in all fields.

  • Correct Server Side Include (SSI) errors. For example in the templates a pages header, footer and section navigation are all included into the page via an SSI. Make sure that they are correctly inserting into the page.
  • Correct or report other errors to script owner.

Screen resolution check

  • Using browser tools such as the Mozilla prefbar or the Firefox Web Developer extension to reset screen to 800x600.
  • If horizontal scrollbar appears, correct problem.

Resources

Performing the design QA process on a test page

We've created a test page that can be used to practice the design QA process. Please note that the test page contains a large number of errors and will be quite challenging.

  1. Download the test files (zip 55kb) to your computer.
  2. Extract the files from the ZIP archive.
  3. Use your preferredfile transfer program to upload the test files to a quite part of your website.
  4. Perform each QA check, fix the errors you find, re-upload the test page, repeat until the page passes all checks.

If you have trouble there is an issues list which details all the errors. If something needs further explanation please contact the WRD team.