If you are managing web projects then you will know that maintaining a high level of quality throughout the website you are producing is hard to do.

There are so many things that can go wrong, and will if they are given the chance – from small typos and grammar mistakes in the copy to broken images and links, layout problems in various web browsers and functionality either not working or not working very well.

Problems can range from being mildly annoying and a little bit frustrating to actually preventing the user from purchasing a product, finding out information about a product or service or making an enquiry.

User Experience

All issues, even the small ones, can detract from an otherwise positive experience, which can have the knock on effect of making the user feel less positive about the company whose website they were viewing.

So our job is to make sure that users have the best possible experience that they can when they view the website we have project managed or produced.

This includes picking up on all site quality issues starting with any priority or big issues and working our way down to the smaller and less obvious or important items.

User experience and usability testing goes into a huge area in its own right but there is still enough to concern ourselves with ensuring the quality of what is produced is as good as it can be.

Browser Testing

The job of quality control would be made easier if visitors arrived at the website under the same set of circumstances as every other visitor, but they don’t.

Visitors use a wide variety of different web browsers on different operating systems using different computers with different resolutions and software installed accessing your website at different broadband speeds creating a huge number of configurations.

In an ideal world, each configuration should be tested so that you can be confident that a user that has a particular combination of browser, operating system, resolution, Internet speed and software installed is able to view and use your website correctly.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world and it is not feasible to test in every browser and operating system combination, as the time required is not available to most project managers or website owners.

A good quality website will display and work correctly in all the main web browsers.

Accessibility

Additionally, we can’t forget about those visitors that have special requirements – I’m talking about accessibility – which means that those using text browsers, screen readers, different input devices, etc. are also able to use your website effectively.

A minimum accessibility level is a requirement for all websites and the best quality websites will provide the most accessible website that they can.

Website Performance

A slow website is extremely frustrating for even the most patient of website visitor, and most of us are not patient website visitors.

Performance testing will highlight bottlenecks and show where code needs to be improved or optimised that causes the website to slow down. It could be that the site search takes a long time to display results or that there are too many database connections each time a page loads, which causes the site to slow or stop working altogether.

A top quality website will address these issues so that the user is able to view a responsive website and not a site that suffers from repeated slowdowns.

A Few Areas to Test

In this post I’ve highlighted just a few areas that should be tested regularly for any website, from straightforward copy mistakes and broken links through browser checking and accessibility to performance testing.

Successfully testing each of these areas will improve the quality of the website that you are producing or managing and we owe it to users to give them the best possible experience.

In my view that means no typos, no broken links, no areas of the site that don’t work and a whole lot more besides.

Striving for the best quality is not going to be easy, and I will follow up on this post with some hints and tips to help your quality testing.

Lessons Learned

• Our job is to give users the best possible experience when they view our website.
• A poor experience can make a user feel less positive about the company or brand.
• Browser checking is necessary, as users do not all have the same browser and operating system combination.
• An accessible website is a requirement.
• Users do not like slow websites and will click away if a page takes too long to load.
• Striving for the best quality is not easy – look out for some hints and tips coming soon.

Contact WebDepend

If you are interested in what WebDepend can do for your business, including our website testing and auditing services then please contact us, we would be happy to hear from you.

Earlier this year, we were approached by a business that needed a wide range of services so they could begin to attract new customers.

Quality Security Services

The business is called Quality Security Services Ltd. and supplies and installs physical security products for both domestic and commercial enterprises. The product range offered includes retractable Window Grilles (often referred to as window grills or security grills), which protect your patio doors on the inside – view the case study.

QSec, as the business name is often shortened to, also provide Roller Shutters for homes, shops, offices and warehouses and recently completed a high profile installation for a Dental Surgery in Wakefield – view the case study.

Further security products provided are Insulated Garage Doors for home owners and a range of Steel Doors including entrance doors and fire doors for business premises, student accommodation, offices and community centres.

To date, WebDepend has carried out the following on behalf of Quality Security Services:

• Sourcing and registering domain names for the business
• Designing the company’s logo and producing artwork for their stationery
• Producing an interim website for the company to start trading whilst we plan, design and build a longer term solution
• Providing hosting services for QSec’s email and website
• Producing copy for the website including product and company information
• Begin search engine optimisation services to enable the website to be indexed and begin to gain top 10 positions for keywords and phrases relevant to the business
• Advising on all aspects of QSec’s web presence, reviewing progress to date and implementing updates and new content as required

Part 1 of this case study brings us up to date of the work with Quality Security Services for the first few months. Part 2 will follow in due course as the working relationship develops and there is further activity and results to report on.

Contact Us

If you are interested in what WebDepend can do for your business, including search engine optimisation, project management, website testing and web development then please contact us, we would be happy to hear from you.

Graphic design agencies are busy companies and there is generally a lot going on in terms of pitching for and winning work, carrying out that work, effectively account managing and directing demanding clients plus remembering to bill for everything you do.

When completing web projects, it is necessary to fully test website developments before launch but when clients need to launch by a set deadline and there are other projects vying for resources plus your project manager is already at capacity then testing often has to be done quickly, and sometimes that means that the testing is rushed.

What often happens when testing is rushed is that the quality of the website suffers. This then runs the risk of starting a series of events that can escalate starting with the new website perhaps not gaining the sales or enquiries that it was expected to due to sub-standard quality, potentially gaining bad comments on social networking sites, damaging your client’s reputation and ultimately damaging your reputation and the working relationship with your client.

In extreme cases, if there is a serious fault with the website that prevents then you may have a very unhappy client on your hands who is looking for more than the application of a fix to the problem.

Solutions

So how do you solve this problem so that you are not rushing testing and launching websites that are of the best quality possible?

Here are a range of solutions:

• Don’t overload your project manager – this might seem like an obvious one but if your project manager is firefighting and trying to manage multiple projects, keep them all moving forward on time, deal with issues, keep specs up to date, liaise with clients, etc. then you can see how testing can be rushed for the project that is launching that week.

  Reducing a project manager’s workload in a short space of time can be quite difficult because moving the responsibility of a project from one person to someone else can mean that the understanding of what that project involves is lost or muddied in some way. So the best method tends to be waiting until 1 project is finished and then not awarding the next project to that project manager, giving them 1 less project to manage.

  Even with a reduced workload, several projects can become more active for a project manager at the same time and so there are still intense periods where specs need writing, developers need briefing, projects need testing and customers need updating all at the same time.

• Move the deadline back – if you are really struggling to get the testing and bug fixing done then you always have the option of moving the deadline back. The client may not be happy about it but moving the deadline is recommended rather than launching a substandard website. If the client digs their heels in and won’t budge then the testing frequently gets rushed, or there are late nights that can result in more mistakes. The risk is a shoddy website.

  Moving the deadline can ease the project manager’s workload but can also just move the bottleneck into next week. There is still the same amount of testing to do and the same number of conflicting projects to manage. Moving deadlines can affect your scheduling of other projects, as they will be impacted and so can perhaps not be started when this project has not yet been launched.

• Reduce the scope of the project – a classic project management ploy when running out of time to develop a website is to reduce the amount of work to do. If you could convince the client to chop off a section or piece of functionality and launch it after the main site then this can save a great deal of time in the associated testing and bug fixing of that section.

  This solution only works if there is a decent chunk of functionality that can be realistically separated or hidden from the rest of the website and you have the support of your client.

  As with moving the deadline for the project back, this solution just moves the bottleneck further on, as it will still need to be tested and made ready for launch at some point in the future. If you have to do this regularly then it can really affect your scheduling and billing, as other projects are not getting started or underway because you are still working on finishing existing projects.

• Outsource the testing – one clear method of reducing your project manager’s workload, not having to move the project deadline back or remove a section before launch is to outsource the testing, or part of the testing to an external company or individual.

  By outsourcing the testing of the whole website you can immediately save hours of your project manager’s time so that he or she can get on with other project management tasks. This gives you the advantage of being able to process more project work and bill a greater amount, i.e. more than paying for the cost of the outsourced testing.

  There are even more benefits gained from outsourcing besides freeing up your project manager, enabling the project to launch on time, process a greater amount of project work with the same internal resources and bill more (if those weren’t enough), have a look at the following.

Outsourced Testing Benefits

• Someone external to the project or client can often pick up on issues missed because even proficient project managers and agency staff members can be too close to the web project and become a bit blind to certain problems.
• An experienced website tester may be able to complete testing more quickly.
• An outsourced website tester can provide a testing plan and checklist of what has been tested for the agency to confirm with the client that site has been tested, which browsers, which resolutions, etc. in addition to the prioritised list of bugs.
• Provide a second level of testing available to pick up on issues after the project manager has completed a first wave of testing.
• Provide suggestions for future improvements, which the agency can use to sell into the client at a later date.
• Carry out post launch and ongoing checks, tests, or site monitoring – providing an additional service that agency can charge onto the client.

Of course, in order to realise the above benefits, you need to be able to depend on the website tester you are outsourcing to and be able to call on them to complete the testing in a thorough and timely manner before feeding back with the prioritised issues.

Contact WebDepend

We like to think that you do gain all of the above benefits when outsourcing some or all of your website testing to WebDepend. If you would like to discuss your website testing requirements then please do contact us.

by Tom Batey, Director of WebDepend Ltd.

WebDepend has now been trading for 3 months and the first quarter has gone past amazingly quickly. Setting up a new company always takes a bit longer than expected with getting the company name registered, bank account, website up and running, business cards and all the other details that every business needs. The time spent getting our IT organised with computers, printers, backup facilities and software has also been (and continues to be) a chore.

Of course, it is also important to start putting the marketing plan into operation and begin attracting clients, making sure first impressions are good and delivering excellent work plus great service for those initial businesses.

At this point we are not far off where I expected and planned to be, both in terms of what needed to be done, what we have accomplished and the financials. There are always things you expect to happen that don’t plus a few opportunities that have presented themselves that were not expected.

We have picked up a few good clients and have carried out some varied work including project management and website testing work for our friends at Evolving, we designed and built a new website for Select Algarve Properties and have worked with several other clients on their Search Engine Optimisation, including producing search engine optimisation evaluation reports, a Usability/SEO audit, carrying out keyword analyses and producing optimisation reports. Finally, we have been maintaining and updating websites for several more clients.

Outside of client work, it is important to keep learning and adding new skills and this is a central aspect to what WebDepend is about. I gained my Google Analytics qualification plus spent time getting into Twitter more and finding time to work on several side projects including my Testing Web Sites blog.

We have several projects in progress, including a new website build for a security products company, which will provide details on their range of window grilles, security shutters, garage doors and door security products plus offer the ability to order products. We have spent a large amount of time with this client and have advised on everything from choosing their business name, searching for domain names, completing their logo design and put together a temporary website for them. We are now getting the SEO moving, starting a PPC campaign, keeping their blog up to date and pushing on with getting the full website finished and launched.

The number of website design and graphic design agencies located in Northampton, Leicester and Bedford that are approaching WebDepend to assist them with website testing, project management and ongoing SEO consultancy services is also growing. If you are interested in partnering with WebDepend then please complete our partner form.

The next 3 months look to be quite exciting with taking on an outsourced web development project for a very well known organisation that unfortunately I cannot name and being involved with an events management organisation in giving seminars to creative individuals on subjects such as SEO, website testing and project management. The latter was completely unexpected and not planned for at all but is a great opportunity for us to pursue nonetheless. Seminar details and dates will be announced soon.

It looks as though the next 3 months will go just as quick as the last 3 months have.

Lee Crampton – Director, Group Solutions:
“We have recommended Tom’s Project Management services to quite a few of our clients. Tom seamlessly works in conjunction with their current resources and helps manage and improve their project and client management processes.

Our clients often discover that Tom’s service can actually pay for itself because his expertise in both web development and sales generation will capitalise on your clients by helping you to sell and cross-sell all of your online products and services.

We would recommend Tom to any creative agency – you can’t put a price on quality advice.”

WebDepend and Group Solutions have worked together on several projects so far in 2010, solidifying a strong working relationship, which is set to continue with a further announcement to be made in the next few days.

If you would like to discuss our project management services in more detail then please contact us.

Key Benefits

• We save you time by carrying out some or all of the testing for you.
• We offer peace of mind by checking things over before launch or handover.
• We provide help and advice on usability, SEO and other aspects.
• We can supply extra services that you can sell on to your client such as website statistics analysis and search engine optimisation.

Why?

As freelancers you put your heart and soul into every web site you design or develop and each project that you work on. Late nights, weekends and early mornings are often spent to finish the project in order to hit a client deadline and, for the most part, this is completed locked away from the outside world.

Even though quality control of what you produce is absolutely vital in order to safeguard your reputation and hopefully earn referrals for further work, the odd issue can still creep through or you are busy with other projects too and do not have the time that you would like to carry out full testing.

Having WebDepend carry out some or all of the website testing for you allows you to press on with other tasks, such as work on another project or speak to your clients to bring some more business in. Time is money so by saving you time we are also saving you money or allowing you to increase your earning potential by completing a greater number of projects.

How?

This is where WebDepend can help, by including us in your quality control process, either to carry out the bulk of testing or as a final peace of mind check, we can provide a number of benefits at a low cost, including the following:

• We save you time and effort by focusing on testing where you may not have time to carry out a full set of tests. Testing can be time consuming and usually requires total concentration. If you have a busy schedule or find yourself getting distracted then testing even for a couple of hours may be difficult when there are clients to speak to, designs to produce, development to complete, updates to send, etc. whereas Testing is the kind of work that we love to do.
• We are external to the project or client and may be able to pick up on certain problems that otherwise may not be spotted. I’ve definitely worked as a Project Manager before on projects where I have suffered from ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’ moments. We will naturally approach the testing differently, focused and with our minds clear, will test different things and in a different way, which often finds additional bugs.
• We provide a testing plan and checklist of what has been tested for you to confirm with client what specifically has been tested, which browsers, at which resolutions, etc. All bugs found are entered into a bug tracking system, document or spreadsheet to be squashed with an explanation of the bug, URL on which it occurs, OS and browser version and with an accompanying screenshot. We can also prioritise bugs into showstoppers, important or not critical as required.
• As we test we often come up with suggestions for future enhancements or improvements, which you can use to sell into your client at later date.
• We can be used as part of your quality control process by carrying out a series of checks or tests as you gear up for launching a website or handing it over to your client. A bit like a spell check after you have written a document, we go through the web site and check that all the elements are in place. For a list of typical items that we check for please have a look here.
• We can carry out pre- and post-launch testing, revisit the website after a period of weeks or months and carry out the same checks, which you can provide to your client as an additional site quality service.

The benefits listed above are not necessarily costly. We understand that budgets on web projects are often tight and our main aims are to save you time and hassle, freeing you up to earn a greater income. Have a look at our typical costs below.

What?

So what exactly do we test? Exact details do vary from project to project but here are items that would be tested for most projects. The specifics of what we test can be tailored by you, just let us know and we will quote just for those items. Similarly, if there are items not on the list then let us know and we will tell you if we can add them in and what the costs will be.

We can also provide a pre-launch checklist of items that we recommend checking through before making a website live plus a few items to check once a website has been launched. Please contact us for further details.

How Much?

Website testing can start from as little as £40.00, which gets you 1 hour of testing. It is surprising what can be covered in a single hour. For full websites and projects we can give you a fixed price quote, which will depend on how big the website is and how much there is to test. This quote will always be based on our hourly rate of £40.00 per hour.

For regular clients discounts are available so please contact us to discuss further. You may also be interested in our partner scheme.

When?

Right now if you want to, contact us and send details of a project that needs some testing, we will follow up with you to make sure that everything is understood and will then get right on it. Did we tell you that we specialise in fast turnaround projects? So if you are about to launch a website and its needs checking over urgently before it goes live then let us know, we would be pleased to help.

If you want to see whether we are up to the job then feel free to look at our industry experience.

Thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to pass this information onto a freelance friend, tweet or repost.

We are proud to announce that Tom Batey has today been awarded the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (Google Analytics IQ), which confirms proof of proficiency in Google Analytics as shown by this Google test record.

Google Analytics is the leading web analytics application in tracking visitor statistics to websites and is used by thousands of web sites worldwide. Google Analytics contains many features to analyse your website traffic and measure the effectiveness of your marketing.

Becoming Google Analytics qualified is an important step in being recognised as an authority in web analytics and website testing. Further qualifications in related technologies and disciplines will follow to ensure that WebDepend continues to be well placed to provide best practice advice and implementation services.

WebDepend is now looking to expand the range of services offered in the area of web analytics implementation, analysis and troubleshooting with more details to follow shortly.

Contact Us

If you would like to discuss Google Analytics with us – either assistance in setting up Google Analytics on your website, understanding what the reports mean and how to analyse your data, or troubleshooting an existing Google Analytics installation then please do contact us, we would be happy to hear from you.