Benchmarking Your IT Services Home Page

Aims of this Exercise

In the following exercises you will use a number of Web-based services to evaluate the size and look of your IT Services home page. You should carry out the exercises with a neighbour and make a note of your results and those of your neighbour’s. This data will then be compared with other Web sites in your community in a benchmarking exercise.

Note Go to the page <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ucisa-tlig-2002/benchmarking/#urls> and bookmark the page. This page contains the URLs used in these exercises.

Note If you do not have a neighbour to compare results with, go to the University of Wolverhampton UK Sensitive Maps at <http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/ukinfo/uk.map.html>, select the Information Technology option and use this to compare results.

1.1 The Size Of Your Home Page Using NetMechanic

Go to the NetMechanic Web site at the address: <http://www.netmechanic.com/toolbox/html-code.htm> and scroll down the page to the HTML Toolbox Free Sample.

Enter the URL of your IT Services home page and personal details and test now.

Click on the link to View a Detailed Report on Load Time.

Once the results have been obtained complete the following table.

Total Page Size (you)

Total Page Size (neighbour)

Total Graphics (you)

Total Graphics (neighbour)

Modem Speed	Download Time (you)	Download Time (neighbour)
56k
T1 (1.44 MB)

1.2 The Size Of Your Home Page Using Bobby

Go to the Bobby Web site at the address: <http://www.cast.org/bobby/>.

Enter your URL and click on the Submit button.

Scroll down the page to Download Time

Total Page Size (you)

Total Page Size (neighbour)

Total Time (you)

Total Time (neighbour)

1.3 Comparison

How do you results compare with your neighbour’s?

How do your total page sizes compare using the two tools?

If there are discrepancies can you think of reasons for them?

1.4 Other Tools

In your own time look at the products available at:

<http://www.somix.com/>

<http://www.entuity.com/>

<http://www.servicemetrics.com/>

<http://www.freshwater.com/SiteScope.htm>

<http://www.rswsoftware.com/>

<http://www.mercuryinteractive.com/>

<http://www.keynote.com/iw.html>

<http://www-heva.mercuryinteractive.com/>

1.5 The Look Of Your IT Services Home Page

Have a look at your IT Services home page and decide which of the following it has:

Home Page	Tick if applicable (you)	Tick if applicable (neighbour)
Traditional menu structure
Changeable page, with news feeds
Personalised page
Dynamic page
Splash screens
Spawns a new windows
Pages requiring specialist browser functionality (e.g. plugins, Java support, etc.)

1.6 Your IT Service’s 404 Error Page

Go to your IT Services Web site and then add a non-existent file name to the end e.g. <http://www.bath.ac.uk/bucs/foo>. Your Web site’s 404 page will be displayed.

How useful is the page? Does it provide help information, navigational aids and have your organisation’s look-and-feel?

You

Neighbour

YYou can compare your 404 error page with other Universities using the Rolling Demonstration of UK University 404 Error Pages at <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/site-rolling-demos/university-404-pages/>.

Accessibility And Validation

Aims Of This Exercise

In the following exercises you will use a number of Web-based services to check the accessibility and validity of your IT Services Web site.

This data will then be compared with other Web sites in your community in a benchmarking exercise.

2.1 Bobby

Go to the Bobby Web site at the address: <http://www.cast.org/bobby/>. Use it to analyse your home page. Does the site contain any accessibility problems? If so, how many P1 errors are there?
You: Neighbour:

2.2 WAVE

Go to the Wave 2.0 Web site at the address: <http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/>. Enter the URL of your Web site.

2.3 Vischeck

Go to the Vischeck Web site at <http://vischeck.com/vischeckURL.php3>. Use this service to see how your home page looks to a colour blind person. Are any of the key features no longer obvious?

2.4 W3C HTML HTML Validation Service

Go to the Web address: <http://validator.w3.org/>

Enter the URL of your IT Services Web site and click on the validation button. Does your page have any errors? Approximately how many? (neigbour). Why?

2.5 Dr Watson

Go to the Web address: <http://watson.addy.com/>

Select the options to analyse the HTML syntax, regular and image links, search engine compatibility and site link popularity. Make a note of any errors or problem areas detected.

2.6 Link Alarm

Go to the Web address: <http://www.linkalarm.com/>

Enter your details and Web site URL in the box. Fill in the further details and submit your Web page for testing. Make sure you give just your home page URL (e.g. index.html) to avoid the whole site being checked. Add the report URL to your favourites, it may take some time and you can return to it later.

How many broken links were there on your home page? (neighbour)

Statistics and Web Site Popularity

Aims Of This Exercise

In the following exercises you will use a number of Web-based statistical packages which can be used to monitor the number and profile of visitors to your IT Services Web site. You will also look at services that monitor the number of links to your Web site.

This data will then be compared with Web sites in your community in a benchmarking exercise.

3.1 LinkPopularity

Go to the LinkPopularity Web site at the address: <http://www.linkpopularity.com/>.

Enter the address of your IT Services Web site.

Complete the following table.

Search Engine	Numbers of Links (you)	Numbers of Links (Neighbour)
AltaVista
Infoseek
Hotbot

3.2 NetMechanic

Go to the NetMechanic Web site at the address: <http://www.netmechanic.com/> and follow the link to Promote. Then select the link to the Free Sample to Track Your Website at <http://www.netmechanic.com/powerpack/tracker.htm#free>.

Enter the address of your IT Service’s Web site followed by a likely search term e.g. University of Bath Computing Service or BUCS. Then click on the Submit button.

Is your Web site in the top 40?

3.3 Cultivate Interactive

Go to the Cultivate Interactive Web site at the address: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/>.

Scroll to the bottom of the window and click on the multi-coloured icon to the left of the Copyright statement.

What is the average number of visitors per day?

Use the Recent Visitors menu to the left to find out how recent visitors were referred to the Web site.

Go to <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue3/presentations/> and click on the blue icon to the left of the copyright statement. How many visitors have read this article? Compare with other articles.

Do you use Web statistics (either externally hosted or purchased) about your Web site? How many visitors access your site?

Evaluating Different Browsers

Aims Of This Exercise

In the following exercises you will use a number of Web-based services to view your organisational Web site using a number of browser emulators.

This data will then be compared with other Web sites in your community in a benchmarking exercise.

4.1 How Many Browsers

How many different browsers do your think there are, besides Netscape and Internet Explorer?

Go to the Browser Archives at the address: <http://browsers.evolt.org/>. How many browsers are listed?

4.2 Browser Emulators

Go to the DejaVu Web site at the address: <http://finnegan.metamatrix.se/dejavu/>. Select the Emulator link. From the image first choose the option to use NCSA Mosaic.

Click on the Open … button near the bottom of the window and enter the URL of your IT Services Web site.

How different does your Web site look in the NCSA Mosaic browser? Is your Web site usable in this browser?

If you have time, use other browsers, such as HotJava.

4.3 Lynx Emulator

Go to the Lynx emulator at the address: <http://www.slcc.edu/webguide/lynxit.html> (or see the list of Lynx browsers at <http://www.trill-home.com/lynx/public_lynx.html>).

Enter the URL of your organisational Web site to see how it looks using a text-only browser such as Lynx.

4.4 SiteViewer (i)

Go to the AnyBrowser Web site at the address: <http://www.anybrowser.com/>.

Select the SiteViewer link to the page at <http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html>.

Scroll down to the Other Compatibility Levels section. Enter the URL of your organisational Web site and select the HTML 2.0 option. Then click on the View Page button to view your Web site as a HTML 2.0 compliant browser would see it (e.g. without support for tables).

Return to the SiteViewer and choose the option to view your Web site using the HTML supported by WebTV.

4.5 SiteViewer (ii)

Return to the AnyBrowser Web site at the address: <http://www.anybrowser.com/>.

Select the Screen Size Test link to the page at <http://www.anybrowser.com/ScreenSizeTest.html>.

Enter the URL of your IT Services Web site and select the 600 x 480 button to view what your Web site would look like at this screen resolution.

Return to the Screen Size Test page and choose the option to view your Web site at other screen resolutions.

Discussion

Aims of this Exercise

In the following exercises you consider options for further benchmarking work.

5.1 WebWatch Benchmarking Audits Of UK Universities and FE Colleges

UKOLN’s WebWatch work has carried out various benchmarking surveys, primarily of the UK HE community (see <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/webwatch/articles/#latest>).

What other benchmarking surveys would be useful?

5.2 Running Your Own Benchmarking Audits

Do you feel there is a need for you to run testing and benchmarking of Web sites within your institution? If so, give details.

5.3 Use of a Commercial Web Testing Tool

Read the information about the Web Stress application at <http://www.web-server-tools.com/tools/WebStress/>.

Is such a tool needed for use to test your Web service?

Would you be willing to pay for such a tool?

5.3 Use of Commercial Web Benchmarking Software

A wide range of commercial Web testing and benchmarking software tools are available (e.g. see <http://www.softwareqatest.com/qatweb1.html>).

Are such tools needed for testing Web services within your institution?

If the answer is yes, what types of tools are needed, and how would you go about the procurement process?

5.4 Use of Commercial Benchmarking Services

A number of commercial Web benchmarking services are available e.g. see <http://www.business2www.com/>. Read about their Web auditing services.

Would a commercial Web audit of your Web service be useful? If so, how much would you be willing to pay?