Testing functionality
It is vital that the testing of the web site's functionality is systematic. Otherwise time might be wasted repeating tests that are not required or by testing an element more than once without a good reason. Preparing a test plan will also give me a structure and guide for the whole of the testing process. For a web site to function correctly the navigational system, the code and the load times must be fast and efficient. So this section of testing will focus mainly on these three aspects.
Functionality test plan
Below is the plan I came up with:
i) Check navigational links:
|
ii) Validate XHTML and CSS:
|
iii) Calculate load times for each page. |
|
iv) Check JavaScript functions work correctly. |
|
The outcomes of testing the functionality
i) Navigation/links
Using Watchfire WebXACT, which is a verification tool that scans web pages, checking for a variety of issues, including quality, privacy, and accessibility; I discovered that there was one dead link on each page of the PSD web site. The cascade stylesheet for printing had for some reason not been included in the upload. So at this moment in time users of the site were unable to print the information on each of the pages effectively. I then quickly uploaded the missing file and repeated the test just on the index.html page. No other dead links appeared so the problem was resolved.
ii) W3C validation
In Unit 5 you will notice how the PSD web site from the very outset was crafted using completely valid XHTML 1.0 Strict. Testing of this nature was performed then, but just to make sure this was repeated. To prove this explictly, on the right is a snapshop of the outcome the W3C XHTML Validator produced after validating the PSD index.html page.
However, I did not validate the CSS using W3C's CSS Validator and I discovered two errors.
What I had done was instead of typing the numerical value of "0", I had typed "none". I did this while describing in the CSS file how to display the "p.float-right" element's margin and padding.
This was easily corrected in a matter of seconds by editing the CSS file in a simple no-frills text editor then uploading it to the PSD section of my remza.co.uk server. Now all the XHTML and CSS is valid it should work on any device capable of displaying or parsing XHTML.
iii) Calculate page loading times
The following times were collated using a plug-in called “FasterFox” for Mozilla Firefox. These tests were done on a 1Mbps ADSL line.
- index.html
- 2.238 seconds
- about.html
- 1.157 seconds
- bios.html
- 3.593 seconds
- products.html
- 3.470 seconds
- contact.html
- 2.360 seconds
- sitemap.html
- 0.796 seconds
- accessibility.html
- 0.922 seconds
- legal.html
- 0.797 seconds
- privacy.html
- 1.188 seconds
As anyone can see, there are no huge image files. This makes the functionality of the site as a whole feel much faster and efficient. It improves the user's experience and cuts down on bandwidth usage thus saving PSD money in the long run.
vi) JavaScript functions
In total there are only two JavaScript functions in the entire PSD site. This is because the site has to be available to all users regardless of whether they have Cookies or JavaScript enabled.
The testing of these functions is straight-forward, I proceeded simply by using them, seeing if they functioned as intended.
Display controls
When JavaScript or Cookies is turned off the default display settings are used, but when they are both enabled the user is able to change the size of text and at the same time change the style of the page. This outcome was exactly what was expected and the effectiveness of the controls brought a acute sense of satisfaction to the tester.
Contact form validation
This function also worked extremely well. It was even able to determine whether a valid telephone number had been entered into the relevant field.
Client-side scripting is ideal for this type of validation. It means the server is not involved in the validation process at all, therefore it's not guzzling up all the web server's processing power. Validation is only performed on required fields which are highlighted by a small asterisk on the form.
Final thoughts on the functionality
It is my belief that the PSD web site at this current point has good functionality for all users. This is due to using standardised XHTML and CSS along with using the minimal amount JavaScript.