Evaluating A Web Site for Quality

The web is a diverse and exciting place, and the technologies that support it change quickly. Understanding whether a website is well-made can be a challenge for the non-specialist, and even seasoned designers can often overlook the principles that distinguish a successful website from one whose usability, and longevity are critically impaired.

In October of 2004, Firefly undertook a month-long study of 500 Maine-grown websites to determine whether the sites were utilizing web-standards, database integration, professional graphics and other hallmarks of solid, contemporary design.

The results were revealing: a staggering 98% of the domains surveyed did not meet the professional standards that would enable these sites to be accessible, attractive and easily maintained.

With poor design endemic, Firefly has developed a short, informative guide for evaluating the quality of a website. It is important to remember that sophisticated websites can be very complicated, and a full-evaluation of the technology and implementation is best left to professionals. That said, there are a number of simple and obvious elements that are present in every proficient design.

Give yourself 10 points for each statement that is true for your website.

1. The aesthetic quality of the website rivals or exceeds that of a printed document.

Given that the majority of websites fail to achieve the graphical maturity that printed documents have offered for many years, many site owners do not realize that their sites are lacking in aesthetic value. Not only should a website match the visual quality of printed materials - the possibility to incorporate rich-media elements, like video and interactivity, should elevate a site far beyond its printed cousins.

2. You can easily find your website on search engines like Yahoo, Google and MSN.

The overwhelming majority of traffic that a successful website receives is driven by search engines. If you can't find your own website by searching for relevant phrases, no one else can either. It is imperative that every commercial website be carefully optimized for search engines.

3. You can easily update the text of your website yourself, through a web-browser.

By and large, the days of the static web have gone by. By storing the text of your site in a database, updating the site becomes easier than sending an email. For example, every Firefly site features a highly secure administrative area where a user can log in, view the current text for any given page, change that text, and hit submit. The changes will automatically be reflected throughout the website. The alternative - forgoing database integration - often results in the frustration and cost of struggling with designers and waiting for updates.

4. The images on your site have excellent color fidelity and load quickly for their size.

Anything less means your designer lacks the very basics of good design.

5. When away from home or the office, you can check your email from your website.

This feature comes standard with every respectable hosting account.

6. Your site features an easy-to-use contact form that visitors can email you from.

Offering a contact form makes your site more user friendly, and suggests a sophisticated web presence. Moreover, a form will protect your email address from being collected by robots and subsequently targeted with SPAM.

7. The first element of your page source is a DOCTYPE header or XML prolog.

To see the page source in Internet Explorer, go to the 'View' menu at the top of the screen, and select 'Source.' The page source is the markup or code that tells your web browser how to display your web page.

Because the rendering engine that your browser uses is different for different coding styles, it is mandatory that websites list the document type first. Omission of this 'tag' reveals a lack of knowledge regarding the way web pages are interpreted, or an inappropriate disregard for established web standards.

8. In the document source, there are no FONT tags.

Excessive use of font and other 'presentation-only' tags is one of the most common, and ultimately unforgivable offenses found on many websites. Today, all font and most display information should be contained in a separate 'style sheet' file. This dramatically reduces the size of each page that must be downloaded and interpreted by the browser. More importantly, by separating content from presentation, it becomes possible to quickly update the look and feel of the entire website, without the need for editing dozens of pages all containing the same information; thus streamlining your ability to maintain the site easily and affordably.

9. Long stretches of Javascript and CSS are externally linked, and not embedded in the document.

Reproducing the same code on every page is a detriment to both time and bandwidth. If changes are required, or errors need correcting, a single change to a linked file can be reflected site-wide instantaneously. Another difficulty with embedded code is that it can have an adverse effect on search engine rankings. This is because many search algorithms view the text near the beginning of a file as more relevant than text that appears deeper in the file. Since many scripts are placed in the first sections of a page, the perceived relevance of important text below can be diminished.

10. Your page does not employ bloated and obsolete table layouts.

The proliferation of immensely complicated, nested table based layouts is an extremely common problem on the web. Most cases arise because many designers employ software, like Macromedia's Dreamweaver, to generate the HTML for a website automatically. Unfortunately, without an adequate grasp of the technologies and standards that underly the web, most designers create sloppy, invalid, and troublesome code in this manner. In addition to violating the principle of separating presentation from content, the incorrect use of tables often creates a needlessly complicated source code that can be difficult to maintain and slow to load.

If you scored below a 60, your website fails the test -- it's time to think about a renovation.