LITEhouse Nomination - Technical Review

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Entry Page	Content Review	Technical Review
Back to Emily Morris - L571 website	LITEhouse L571 class page	Evaluation Criteria

This page will review the technical and usabililty aspects of the High Point High School Library Media Center's website.

HTML Coding and Validation Review

I examined the coding on the source, and it uses "HTML 3.2 Final." I didn't notice any errors in coding when I just browsed it, but I did more testing. I also ran a HTML validation program on the source URL with W3C Markup Validator. The errors that the validator came up with have to do with what I believe are deprecated tagas. For example, the tag "summary" is not allowed. Other tags or words that are used that are not allowed are "bgcolor," "width," and "style." Another term they use frequently is a "non-SGML character." It also didn't have a valid DOCTYPE statement. I also noticed that it had some issues with ending tags like "(/b)" without having an appropriate "(b)" tag before it. (Parenthesis used purposely to avoid HTML coding kicking in.) In the source, I noticed that the site was created with a program --Microsoft Front Page. I assume that the webmaster used the program exclusively and isn't as concerned with validation. Many things may change if they would put in a valid HTML DOCTYPE statement.

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Links

I found that the majority of the links worked, but not all of them. Some led to a "page not found" message or to the proper server but the specific page was gone (such as the American Poets link). I think the webmaster needs to go through the pages again and test the links to discover if they still work and replace broken ones. The mail link I found on the Web design and multimedia club secondary page works fine.

Scrolling

Within in this, the user will have to do some vertical scrolling. The entry page is long enough the one much go up and down. Many of the secondary pages are even longer. However, the width of the website pages do not require horizontal scrolling.

Images and other page elements

This site does have some images. Only one of them have an animated feature, and it does work. The other images are used in combination with text to point to an external link. One other image, the logo of the high school, shares a part of the title page banner. All of the images do work. All of the images except one has alternative text for people who may not see the images. The black text is clear and easy to read against the white background. It appears in the right spot. There is no trouble reading it.

Loading issues

I found that the entry page doesn't take very long to load. Some of the secondary pages do take a while to load on the dial-up modem that I have. An example of this instance is "evaluating sources of information" in the information literacy section. PDF files and DOC files do take longer to load because the format is different and requires starting a new program.

User friendliness and navigation

I think this site has categorized its links in a such a way that a student should be able to look under the bold print headings to find where his/her desired link would be. However, I also say that there are SO MANY links that, although they are organized, the screen is very crowded and busy-looking. Navigation is performed through clicking a desired link and usually using the back button to return to the previous screen. I did notice that the secondary pages that were also authored by the webmaster (like the pathfinder Folk Dance did have a link to return to the main library page.

Accessibilty Issues

Some of the documents linked to the entry page are .doc and .pdf files. These files will require a Microsoft Word/Works program and an up-to-date version of Adobe Acrobat/Reader. The Microsoft software usually comes standard on most PC's and the Adobe Reader is available free through the Internet. No other special software is required to view the pages.

Labeling

The site uses red table cells to highlight categories of information and links. The categories it gives are Internet Links, Big6 Research Links, Other Research Help Links, Create Web-based Products, Recommended Reading, Web Design and Multimedia Club, and New Links. Under Internet Links, bold headings are used to separate the information even more. Those headings are Information Literacy, Pathfinders, Colleges and Careers, News, Search Engines, and Homework Help.

I would have also used a heading of "Teacher Links" or in some other way distinguished the final link of "Professional Links for Teachers" because it doesn't fit in any of the other categories. I would have also put a label for the three links at the bottom of the page dealing with the local school, the school district and the state department of education.

If you need to download Adobe Reader to view .pdf files, here is a link to do that.

Web Author: Emily Morris, IUPUI School of Library Science graduate student Page creation date: September 24, 2005 Last revision: September 26,2005 XHTML validation site:W3C Markup Validation Service CSS validation site:W3C CSS Validator Web accessibilty site:Watchfire WebXACT