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Link - KEYWORD SEARCH RESULTS
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13 - PRIMARY Keyword matches for ARTICLE
Click on any Title to go to that site
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Currently when constructing websites, designers usually rely on style guides and their own intuition to help determine where to position particular web objects on a web page. However, both style guides and intuition may not be a suitable guide for the placement of these objects. Style guides frequently are based on the book metaphor which is often inappropriate for the Web, whereas intuition is often little more than guessing where these items should be placed. While style guides and intuition do serve a purpose, what is necessary is to understand where users typically expect web objects to be located on a web page. Obviously, knowledge of where users anticipate to find these objects should aid in the effectiveness of the site. Thus, a basic question that is raised here is where do users typically expect certain web objects to be located on a web page?
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Collecting, Writing, and Revising Content
* Easy-to-use-content is critical
* Stages and guidelines for preparing easy-to-use content
* Why is easy-to-use-content so critical
Easy-to-use content is critical
The heart of a Web site is the content. Users come to a Web site because they want the content, the information. Even in an e-commerce Web site, users are looking for information to help in their decisions on what to buy.
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MORAE
Type: Product
Primary Key: Product
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Morae is the only fully integrated, all-digital solution for analyzing human-computer interaction. Powered by TechSmith's new patent-pending Rich Recording Technology, Morae combines both user and system activity into one synchronized recording that is indexed and searchable. Review and analyze recording sessions quickly and accurately - then edit and share your insight with anyone, anywhere.
Remote Viewer allows you to connect over a LAN to the computer you are recording and displays all the desktop activity in real-time. Observers can watch what is happening and Markers can be entered to flag important moments. The Markers are communicated back to Recorder, synchronized and saved with the recorded data.
Morae Manager's built-in editing functionality allows you to quickly share the important moments in your recordings with project managers, developers, designers, clients, and other stakeholders. You can even adjust the size, position and opacity of the user's Picture-in-Picture image on a clip-by-clip basis.
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This issue of the newsletter takes a close look at two recent research studies. Dr. Bailey referenced one study by Bernard, Fernandez, and Hull. I'd like to take a closer look at that study here, and review even more recent results that just came out in .
In the Bernard, Fernandez, and Hull study from , the researchers used both adults (ages to , median of ) and children (ages to ). They used different line lengths:
- Full distance ( characters per line, or CPL),
- Medium ( CPL), and
- Short ( CPL).
They found no significant differences on reading time for either children or adults when comparing the different lengths.
But when they asked a series of preference questions they got some interesting and statistically significant results. The adults said it was easier to concentrate on the narrow length than both the medium and full length (statistically significant at p<. ). The children did not have any significant difference on perceived concentration.
Both children and adults had definite preferences. No adults chose the full length as their favorite. Most chose medium length, and narrow length was not far behind. For the children the full length was also the least preferred, with a strong preference for the narrow length.
Another study by Ryan Baker adds more interesting results to ponder. Baker set up three online reading conditions:
- paging where there was no scrolling required and the users read a page of text with a medium line length and then used a page forward button to go to the next page and the next,
- a "full" condition where there was some scrolling as well as a page forward key, and
- a scrolling condition which had no paging, but required a lot of scrolling.
Results of the study showed that users took significantly longer to read a passage in the paging condition than in the other conditions. The areas that showed no significant differences are telling as well. There were no significant differences in any of the following: perception that a particular condition was more well-suited for reading, that one condition made information easier to find, or that a particular layout was better for comprehension.
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Usability is the basic parameter for the evaluation of e-learning technologies and systems. Usability means quality and puts the users and their real needs in the center. Therefore investigation of usability and its integration or contribution to the learning process is worthwhile. In this article several questions regarding usability definition and usability evaluation techniques for e-learning are raised. In addition several relevant research works are briefly reviewed and the need for more focused research efforts and empirical validation is stressed. In conclusion it is proposed that a usability evaluation technique for e-learning has to satisfy three basic prerequisites/characteristics in order to be easily adopted and used.
The proposed set of "learning with software" heuristics contains the following:
* Match between designer and learner models
* Navigational fidelity
* Appropriate levels of learner control
* Prevention of peripheral cognitive errors
* Understandable and meaningful symbolic representations
* Support personally significant approaches to learning
* Strategies for cognitive error recognition, diagnosis, and recovery
* Match with the curriculum
Lohr and Eikleberry [] propose a three-step approach to learner-centered usability testing. The first step suggests that designers and usability experts do a quick run through of the instructional interface to see if it is addressing some of the most basic types of learner questions. The second step employs a check sheet matrix to guide the usability testing. The matrix consists of two sections: a) user actions that evaluators can observe and b) questions that evaluators can ask the users. Observation and interviews are the main methods proposed. The third step includes users and employs thinking aloud protocol, a very well known and widely used usability evaluation method, which is employed in usability tests with users' involvement.
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Provides a basic overview of and general information about usability.
Usability is the measure of the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a product or system - whether a Web site, a software application, mobile technology, or any user-operated device.
Usability is a combination of factors that affect the user's experience with the product or system, including:
Ease of learningHow fast can a user who has never seen the user interface before learn it sufficiently well to accomplish basic tasks?
Efficiency of use - Once an experienced user has learned to use the system, how fast can he or she accomplish tasks?
Memorability - If a user has used the system before, can he or she remember enough to use it effectively the next time or does the user have to start over again learning everything?
Error frequency and severity - How often do users make errors while using the system, how serious are these errors, and how do users recover from these errors?
Subjective satisfaction - How much does the user like using the system?
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Welcome to the Usability Methods Toolbox! I've attempted to compile information about almost all of the methods and techniques (well, ok, a lot of them) used in usability evaluation. I hope you find helpful information here, or at least a pointer to additional information that will help you find what you need.
Inquiry
- Contextual Inquiry
- Ethnographic Study / Field Observation
- Interviews and Focus Groups
- Surveys
- Questionnaires
- Journaled Sessions
- Self-reporting Logs
- Screen Snapshots
Inspection
- Heuristic evaluation
- Cognitive Walkthroughs
- Formal Usability Inspections
- Pluralistic Walkthroughs
- Feature Inspection
- Consistency Inspection
- Standards Inspection
- Guideline checklists
Testing
- General concepts
- Thinking Aloud protocol
- Co-discovery method
- Question asking protocol
- Performance measurement
* Eye-tracking
- Prototyping
* Low-fidelity
* High-fidelity
* Horizontal
* Vertical
- Affinity Diagrams
- Archetype Research
- Blind voting
- Card-Sorting
- Education Evaluation
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About Usability - Learn about usability and usability professionals.
Usability in the Real World - Read examples of the issues surrounding usability in real settings and explore tools for promoting usability.
Guidelines and Methods - Access links to usablity style guides, keep up with the development of standards, and find tools to help you with your work.
Usability Web Sites and Organizations - Browse a list of related professional organizations, and find other sites with information about usability.
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Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide - books and conferences
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Cartoons about usability
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The idea is that, no matter what you're doing, there's a user-centered way of doing it.
Users should be considered throughout the website design process. Usability should not be an afterthought. Testing and fixing a website after it has been built is inefficient and unlikely to produce good results. The best approach to take is to incorporate a model of "pervasive usability" into your design and production process.
The benefits of planning usability into your project are:
Increased end-user satisfaction
Increased end-user productivity, success, and completion
Reduced long-term development costs (costs incurred from fixing poorly designed products)
Reduced training and support costs
Return business to improve your competitiveness
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WEBXM
Type: Product
Primary Key: Product
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The WebXM platform scans enterprise websites, regardless of size or complexity, and identifies compliance, quality and risk issues that impact your organization's ability to meet your business goals. Read the WebXM Factsheet (PDF, - KB).
WebXM's reporting modules help your organization:
* Manage Web Privacy
The Privacy module generates online privacy reports about your website so you can identify information collection, privacy policy linking (including P - P), and user tracking practices.
* Protect Web Application Security
Watchfire's Security module identifies the servers and technologies in place and potential web application security breaches.
* Enable Regulatory Compliance
The Regulatory Compliance module builds on the Privacy and Security modules to help you address new regulatory challenges, including privacy practices, opt-out language, - rd party data sharing and age information at data collection points.
* Protect Corporate Brand on the Internet
Watchfire's Brand Protection offering monitors company trademark and brand name use across the Internet and identifies link to questionable content to better manage third-party relationships.
* Improve User Experience and Online Content
The Quality module scans your online properties and reports on brand, content and interaction issues such as broken forms, slow loading pages, faulty purchase checkouts, broken links, poor searchability, and usability errors.
* Understand User Behavior
The Web Analytics module shows you how visitors interact with website content by correlating traffic data with content quality analysis, compliance issues, usability metrics, and website defects.
* Extend Marketing and Brand Standards
The Corporate Style Guidelines offering helps extend your marketing and brand standards enforcement across all corporate web properties and helps manage how your brand is represented on the Web.
* Enable Web Accessibility
The Accessibility module scans for over comprehensive web accessibility checks, to help automate compliance with government standards, including the US government's Section - , and the W C's WCAG guidelines
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Contextual Enquiry (CE) is a technique for examining and understanding users and their workplace, tasks, issues and preferences. CE can be used to produce user needs analyses and task analyses. The results of a CE feed directly into the design process. Although CE is time-consuming, it uncovers a wealth of invaluable data.
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21 - SECONDARY Keyword matches for USABILITY
Click on any Title to go to that site
Click on any Primary Key to search by that keyword
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The Web Accessibility Toolbar is provided by the Accessible Information Solutions (AIS) team at the National Information and Library Service (NILS), Australia. Please read the Terms of Use before downloading and installing the Web Accessibility Toolbar.
The Web Accessibility Toolbar has been developed to aid manual examination of web pages for a variety of aspects of accessibility. It consists of a range of functions that:
* identify components of a web page
* facilitate the use of - rd party online applications
* simulate user experiences
* provide links to references and additional resources.
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Best Practices in Enterprise Content Management, Volume IV a White Paper published by KMWorld and Information Today, Inc.
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Guideline . of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines . requires that foreground and background colour combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having colour deficits, or when viewed on a black and white screen. Two colours provide good colour visibility if the brightness difference and the colour difference between the two colours are greater than a set range. They suggest a colour contrast algorithm, which is used in this test. The algorithm is under development, and may be likely to change. Any changes to their algorithm will be updated on this page.
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The ultimate objective for educational software is that it should be educationally beneficial, thus it is important in such environments to understand how usability contributes (or not) to educational goals (Jones et al., ). Squires and Preece ( ) argue that scholars have not considered the implications of usability features of an educational package in order to achieve educational goals. To this end, these authors advocate that there is a need to help evaluators consider the way in which usability and learning interact". To this end, this paper argues that there is a need for usability scholars to consider the way in which usability and learning (special emphasis on user interfaces of web-based courses), interact. It is therefore, the aim of this paper to review usability methods and learning theories currently used to design e-learning applications, examine specific usability attributes that need to be considered and report some preliminary findings derived from a test using a web-based testing system.
* Match between designer and learner models
* Navigational fidelity
* Appropriate levels of learner control
* Prevention of peripheral cognitive errors
* Understandable and meaningful symbolic representations
* Support personally significant approaches to learning
* Strategies for cognitive error recognition, diagnosis and recovery
* Match with the curriculum
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days to a more accessible web site
This book answers two questions. The first question is "Why should I make my web site more accessible?" If you do not have a web site, this book is not for you. The second question is "How can I make my web site more accessible?" If you are not convinced by the first answer, you will not be interested in the second.
(Note: Site is an excellent example of being what they're teaching)
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This site is jam packed with "how to" articles, templates and calculators in the tool box, dozens of white papers, time saving book summaries and links to the best sites on the net.
e-Learning Basics for Newbies
Systematic Design for e-Learning
Adult Learning Theory
Usability & Interface Design
Blended Learning
Selling Internally for Support
The ROI of e-Learning
Case Studies: Great ROI
Marketing Internally to Learners
Reusable Learning Objects & SCORM Issues
Managing e-Learning
Miscellaneous
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Learning with software heuristics
The analysis in the previous section of the possible relationships between the Nielsen heuristics the notions of cognitive and contextual authenticity can be used as the basis of developing a set of 'learning with software 'heuristics. By looking for links between the individual relationships it is possible to propose an initial set of 'learning with software' heuristics:
* A need for a match between designer and learner models is implied by considering intrinsic feedback and the relationship between learner and designer models. At some level of system definition intrinsic feedback should provide a legitimate and understandable representation of cognitive tasks which ensures that the model formed by learners will be consistent with the designer's model. A low level representation close to the core language of a system will probably be confusing. Representation at too high a level will result in a superficial model, which will not be of genuine use, and may even be misleading. The designer and learner models do not need to be the same, but there should be no differences between them, which would cause misconceptions in the learner's model of the relationship between the interface and the system.
* A requirement for navigational fidelity is apparent when navigational structure, cosmetic authenticity, limited representation of the world and superficial complexity are considered. Interface designs that provide good usability may compromise authenticity by providing simplistic representations of the real world. The use of elaborate multimedia features may result in superficially complex interfaces which focus interaction on incidental navigation, rather than intended learning tasks.
* The need to consider appropriate levels of learner control follows from a consideration of learner control and shared responsibility, self directed learning (both with regard to credibility and complexity), tailoring and consistent protocols. A socio-constructivist view emphasises that learners should have a sense of ownership of their learning. This implies that they should have the maximum amount of control while still working in a supportive learning environment. The locus of control among peers during collaborative work is important.
* The need for the prevention of peripheral cognitive errors is implied by the relationship between complexity and error prevention. Cognitive errors should be relevant to the major learning issues. Peripheral' usability related errors should be anticipated and avoided. Where possible novice versions of an application should be provided.
* The requirement for understandable and meaningful symbolic representation follows from a consideration of representational forms and the use of symbols within and across applications. Learners should not be burdened with having to learn and remember arcane forms of interaction. The interface should place a low cognitive demand on the learner and functionality should be obvious. The same symbols, icons and names used to represent educational 'objects' and concepts should be used consistently throughout an application.
* The need to support personally significant approaches to learning follows from a consideration of multiple representations, learners' support materials and metacognition. It should be clear what learning styles are supported and which aspects of an application's design relate to learning style characteristics.
* The need for strategies for the cognitive error recognition, diagnosis and recovery cycle is implicit from the discussion of pedagogical techniques. Established strategies to promote the cycle of recognition, diagnosis and recovery should be used, e.g. cognitive conflict, scaffolding, and bridging.
* There is a clear need for a match with the curriculum is evident from a consideration of curriculum relevance and teacher customisation.
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Searchable collection of articles, with reader comments about internet design
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A web-site that discusses how to create good business documents in the linked, on-screen environment of Intranets and the Internet.
This site was originally created by Dan Bricklin of Trellix Corporation. It comes from the requests we received for guidance on how to write business documents for reading on-screen. In developing the Trellix and programs, we came up with lots of ideas, techniques, philosophies, etc., about reading on-screen. This site is a way of sharing, and improving upon through discussion, that work.
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HBX On-Demand Web Analytics from WebSideStory gives online marketers actionable insight to optimize their entire customer life cycle. HBX makes it simple to improve your marketing ROI, sales and revenue and increase customer satisfaction.
* Campaign Analytics * E-Commerce Analysis * Active Viewing Browser Plugin * Advanced Visitor Segmentation * Detailed Content Analysis * Web Site Navigation Analysis * Internal Search Tracking * Executive Dashboards * Powerful Custom Reports * Cross-Channel Integration
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Full Book available online
Learn how to merge aesthetics and mechanics to design web sites that "work." This book shows how to apply principles of architecture and library science to design cohesive web sites and intranets that are easy to use, manage, and expand. Covers building complex sites, hierarchy design and organization, and techniques to make your site easier to search. For webmasters, designers, and administrators
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Authoring & editing
Budgeting, reporting, & metrics
Case studies
Content management
Enterprise knowledge management
Government applications
Graphics & posters
Learning & education
Legal applications
Ontologies & topic maps
Personal knowledge management
Publishing
Reviews
Studies & surveys
Research & searching
Slides & presentations
Taxonomies & metadata
Technologies & tools
Trends & strategies
Usability & user behavior
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Complete Enterprise Search, Behavior Analytics & Optimization Solution
A Mondosoft solution enables enterprises to perform effective online dialog with customers - something that is often greatly missed on the Internet. The solution works closely with content management systems and is based on three interoperating products, which provide a high degree of synergy with each other and help make information a more valuable asset.
Complete Enterprise Search, Behavior Analytics & Optimization Solution A Mondosoft solution enables enterprises to perform effective online dialog with customers - something that is often greatly missed on the Internet. The solution works closely with content management systems and is based on three interoperating products, which provide a high degree of synergy with each other and help make information a more valuable asset.
The combined action of the - products of Mondosoft's search solution constantly enables the enterprise to update the way users are met in the online environment.
MondoSearch provides overview of information to end-users, as well as to site owners via BehaviorTracking. BehaviorTracking makes it easy to see how content could be improved and how products, services or information should target user needs. The actions are applied and aligned to corporate strategies with InformationManager.
MondoSearch is an advanced, multi-lingual enterprise search engine. With unmatched performance and ease-of-use, MondoSearch is the most comprehensive and cost-effective solution on the market today. There is more to it than just keyword searching and lists of results. MondoSearch delivers categorized search results in context, so users will know what is relevant to them.
BehaviorTracking beats all other web site analytics software products because it provides information that you can use instantly to improve response quality and thereby business results. BehaviorTracking makes MondoSearch smarter with every visit because it tracks each search all the way through to its successful - or unsuccessful - conclusion and learns from visitors' behavior. BehaviorTracking provides simple and concise reports-on-demand that actually recommend what actions should be taken to improve sales, cut costs and retain customers.
InformationManager is the crucial link between BehaviorTracking, which provides a wealth of facts about visitors, and MondoSearch, which represents your site's strongest tool for interacting with users. InformationManager makes it easy to put the insight obtained via BehaviorTracking into tangible actions and improvements that will strengthen your communication and help you to give your site visitors a great experience.
Whether you run an e-commerce site, a corporate web site, portal or intranet, the types of problems that visitors experience, and the challenges in overcoming them, are the same.
A Mondosoft solution enables you to maximize the value of information about visitors' behavior, gives power to your web presence, and simplifies the ongoing, day-to-day tasks of content and knowledge management.
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The Communication Technologies Branch of the United States National Cancer Institute (part of National Institutes of Health and Department of Health and Human Services) has
been conducting usability testing with people with disabilities, specifically blind and lowvision users, to
*understand the relationship between accessibility and usability
*understand how blind and low-vision users work with Web sites
*develop research-based guidelines for accessibility and usability
*assess the usability of specific Web sites for blind and low-vision users
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Abstract: This tutorial provides a quick introduction to the Unified Modeling Language
The heart of object-oriented problem solving is the construction of a model. The model abstracts the essential details of the underlying problem from its usually complicated real world. Several modeling tools are wrapped under the heading of the UML, which stands for Unified Modeling Language. The purpose of this course is to present important highlights of the UML.
At the center of the UML are its nine kinds of modeling diagrams, which we describe here.
* Use case diagrams
* Class diagrams
* Object diagrams
* Sequence diagrams
* Collaboration diagrams
* Statechart diagrams
* Activity diagrams
* Component diagrams
* Deployment diagrams
Some of the sections of this course contain links to pages with more detailed information. And every section has short questions. Use them to test your understanding of the section topic.
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The rollout of a content management system (CMS) has the potential to impact on more users than any other system since e-mail. More crucially, the success of a CMS depends entirely on how much it is used, whether it is authors creating content, or users accessing the published site. It is these two challenges that place usability as a central issue to be raised and addressed.
Benefits of usability
- deployment is simpler and quicker
- training needs are reduced
- resistance to change is lessened
- content is more frequently updated
- ability to conduct in-house maintenance and management
- reduces cost of ownership
- published site is used more frequently, and more successfully.
How to ensure a usable CMS
- Involve all stakeholders in the CMS project, to identify their issues and needs.
- Include usability as a criteria in the CMS tender, to be demonstrated by the vendor.
- Rigorously assess the usability of the potential solutions, including the quality of training materials and documentation.
- Design and implement the CMS with usability principles (and simplicity) in mind.
- Use light-weight usability testing for all aspects of the CMS, and the published pages.
- Include an interface designer, or usability specialist, in the CMS team.
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When The eLearning Guild’s Research Committee determined priorities for the survey series, usability came up high on the list. We wanted to find out what Guild Members and Associates thought about usability and e-Learning. We wanted to know how they deal with usability issues as they go about the business of designing and developing e-Learning programs and courses.
Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, defines usability as making sure that something works well: that a person of average (or even below average) ability and experience can use the thing for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated.
The following pages outline my analysis and commentary and include contributions from members of the Research Committee. ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY BY JOE PULICHINO
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The WaSP LEARN section exists to provide you with resources to get you up to par with web standards. This expanding area of tutorials, articles, reference charts, templates, and a directory of website resources can help you make sense of the standards and prepare you for things that could be especially challenging or confusing.
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Tutorials on just about every facet of web design, CSS section is very rich.
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Watchfire® WebQA, the next generation of Linkbot, is a website quality testing tool for small or departmental websites. WebQA assists with quality assurance and accessibility testing by reporting on web content issues to help developers and quality assurance staff pinpoint and fix quality, interaction and accessibility defects. WebQA supports accessibility testing by integrating the features of Watchfire® Bobby. Using these features, you can test your level of compliance with Section - or the W C's WCAG accessibility standards. In addition to testing content, WebQA can also help you edit your site's metadata to improve search ranking and internal site searchability. Read the WebQA Factsheet (PDF, - KB).
WebQA scans web pages for problems, and generates reports, including:
* broken links
* spelling errors
* slow loading pages
* accessibility issues
WebQA scans through the following technologies:
* Javascript
* Flash
* Dynamic content
* Secure pages (https)
* Media files
* Session IDs
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WebXACT is a free online service that lets you test single pages of web content for quality, accessibility, and privacy issues.
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