Fantastic Website Evaluation Tools

Good websites should do more than just look pretty. Although people often judge books by their covers, they also eventually open the books and expect a good read. Websites are very similar. Appearance may be enough to draw in someone's attention, but to keep it, your website needs to function well, be usable, load quickly, and deliver its content in the manner the creator originally intended. There is no one tool that can automatically tell you if your website will do all of that, but there are many tools that can help you determine how well your site has been designed and how well it performs in various browsers and environments. HTML/CSS Validation HTML is the language of the web, and according to dedicated hosting company 34sp.com, "It is the basis of all web pages on the Internet." While it is possible to publish something on the web without using any HTML, anything more than a single line of text will require HTML coding. One of the best ways to ensure your site functions properly is to validate your code for W3C standards compliance. The W3C provides validators for both HTML and CSS. You can upload your document or provide the link for it directly from the web. HTML Validator CSS Validator Browser Compatibility Testing In a perfect world, all browsers would view websites exactly as the authors intended, but we do not live in such a world. Web browser makers are competitors, and even under the best conditions, their browsers will sometimes display standards-compliant HTML code differently from one another. The best way to view your site in various browsers is to download and install each one. However, not all may be compatible with your operating system. The following tools allow you to view your site in different web browsers, just as they would actually appear. Browser Shots CrossBrowserTesting.com BrowserCamp Adobe Browser Lab Accessibility Testing In terms of the web, accessibility is the ability of every person, regardless of their physical or other condition, to access the content on your website. Visually impaired people, for example, should be able to access your site using screen readers. Someone with sensitivity to flickering lights should not be inundated with flickering ads on your site. For accessibility, there is no one automated tool to check all requirements, but you can use a combination of self-checking, using accessibility guidelines, along with automated checkers that will identify some, but not all, problems with your site. Accessibility guidelines A-Checker Hera Usability Testing Computers generally do not have problems interpreting their own code. Therefore, an automated usability test would be a waste of time. The only way to truly find out if your site is usable is to have people use it and give feedback. The tests can formal, using observation and analysis, or simple and straightforward, with unscripted feedback The important thing is to test early and test people who fit your target audience. You can find a 25-point website usability checklist at this site. If you can fit it into your budget, you might also want to consider hiring a consulting firm to evaluate your site's usability and help you make the necessary changes. Speed Testing A website can be standards-compliant, accessible, and still be slow. We live in an era when people expect content without delay. They are impatient and want to get in and out as quickly as possible. Waiting for images, plugins, and other rich content can discourage people from using your site. They may even leave it before the loading finishes. This is especially true for Flash-based sites that load and buffer before they appear. Those are obvious speed issues, but some may not be so immediately apparent. Your site may be relatively fast, but there is always room for improvement. Some speed tests, like iWebTool will give you a simple load time average that may help you decide if your site is fast enough. Others, like Pingdom, provide comprehensive data about the components that are fast on your site and those that are not. iWebTool Pingdom Testing your website is one of the most important steps in web design, yet many people fail to do it. The result is a large number of websites that people cannot stand to use. If you have content you feel is important for people to use, nothing is worse than people getting so frustrated by your site's design that they give up trying to find the information. With the right evaluation and revisions, your site can be fast, accessible, compatible with most devices, and easy to use. Tavis J. Hampton is a librarian and writer with a decade of experience in information technology, web hosting, and Linux system administration. He currently works for LanternTorch.Net, which offers writing, editing, tech training, and information architecture services.

So Who Really Killed Off 12seconds? (aka Twitter For Video) After jumping into the micro vlogging (aka video blogging) wars 3 years ago, it looks like 12seconds is taking its final bow by announcing its shut down near the end of October (the 22nd to be exact). Nearly 3 years ago, David Beach and I decided to grab a beer at a local pub and talk about startup ideas.  I told him a dumb idea and he told me about one called 10seconds.  I said, "we should do that one."  He said, "okay."  And that was it.  That is until we figured out that 10seconds.tv was already taken.  12seconds sounded pretty good to us too. We set out on a journey that would take on a wild ride of ups and downs.  We experienced birth, death and (Beach) even battled cancer. Today we are announcing the end of 12seconds. (12seconds.tv) Although far from a failure (aside from the pending shut down that is), 12seconds was facing an up hill battle against Flickr (who offers users 90 seconds of short video bliss) as well as Twitter (who may enter the micro video wars in the future. Throw in the ever popular Tumblr (who also offers users video uploading) and 12seconds chances for a future victory were not looking too good. Despite attracting celebrities like Shaq and being embraced early on by Tweetdeck, 12seconds was never able to gain a large following in an age where Twitter and Facebook dominate all things social (at least according to the media).

Twitter Officially Launches Promoted Tweets Promoted Accounts are now officially showing up on Twitter accounts. The new advertising solution from Twitter allows brands to appear on users accounts as "Who To Follow" suggestions. The program is setup to display possible follow suggestions based on a users Twitter preferences. According to the company, the program uses proprietary algorithms to determine if a user would like the suggestions they are receiving, allowing for account specific targeting. The launch of the new program has arrived quickly, being announced by company CEO Dick Costolo just last week. While the program has officially launched, the "testing phase" means only a few companies are currently allowed to use the system, however once testing is completed the program is expected to open up to new advertisers. Promoted Tweets are also being tested on third-party apps, but have yet to be widely released. The Twitter API for Promoted Accounts is also severely limited to only Twitter selected developers. Here's a closer look at how "Who to follow" suggestions look:

Twitter COO Dick Costolo Takes Over As CEO Twitter COO Dick Costolo has been given the reigns of the company, taking over the position of CEO from site co-founder Evan Williams. Williams writes of the decision: The challenges of growing an organization so quickly are numerous. Growing big is not success, in itself. Success to us means meeting our potential as a profitable company that can retain its culture and user focus while having a positive impact on the world. This is no small task. I frequently reflect on the type of focus that is required from everyone at Twitter to get us there. This led to a realization as we launched the new Twitter. I am most satisfied while pushing product direction. Building things is my passion, and I've never been more excited or optimistic about what we have to build. This is why I have decided to ask our COO, Dick Costolo, to become Twitter's CEO. Starting today, I'll be completely focused on product strategy. More on this breaking story as we gain further information about the switch. Funny enough, just as I read his post I tried to log into Twitter and had five minutes of fail whales…so far, not so good.

Is Melody Mimicking WordPress? Melody, Movable Type's cousin (and perhaps frenemy) is in the process of redesigning their user interface before their immanent 1.0 launch. While the upcoming CMS is proposing a few odd changes to their future layout (i.e. putting the logo at the bottom of the admin page), the proposed layout seems eerily similar to WordPress. Developers working on Melody are claiming that the layout is borrowed from Movable Type 3 instead of WordPress (which could be true as I've never tried MT3), although truth be told it does look much nicer than Movable Type 4 (as well as Typepad). Open Melody is also planning on integrating another feature used by WordPress (that would be WP.com) that might raise concerns as to whether Melody is mimicking the best of WordPress. One of the debates we often have as a community is what Melody should look like. Inspired by that debate Jesse Gardner took a stab at some concepts for Melody that are exciting to see. [...] Some additional concepts we are talking about: Being able to tack your favorite blogs into the menu so that they are always immediately accessible. Using the same window for personalized navigation shortcuts. (Official Melody Blog) Note: Emphasis mine. Although popularized by Tumblr, truth be told many popular platforms (including Blogger) allow one to "follow" blogs in order to receive updates from friends without having to load an RSS reader or subscribe via email. While there is nothing wrong with Melody adopting a clean layout as well as following blogs from within ones dashboard, hopefully the team will consider something more innovative to help differentiate itself from WordPress (as well as Movable Type).

Mark Zuckerberg Simpsons Appearance Is Hilarious [Video] You know you've put your finger on the pulse of America when Matt Groening and his staff puts you in an episode of The Simpsons and that's exactly what happened this past Sunday to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The appearance occurs at an entrepreneur conference that Lisa takes Nelson to show him the importance of going to college. At the expo Lisa learns that the top people in attendance all dropped out including Richard Branson, Bill Gates and of course Mark Zuckerberg. The best part? Zuckerberg almost always only talks to people by updating his Facebook page, always starting with the saying "Mark Zuckerberg is…" With The Social Network reaching movie screens on October 1st, I doubt the Facebook CEO's appearance was an accident and it was actually really funny. Here's the clip featuring Zuckerberg as he talks about dropping out of college: Now here's Zuckerberg as he uses "Status Updates" to communicate with people: