Usability on Internet Marketing Research - Page 2

Coffeee™ · 11-10-2003, 03:29 AM

A link to the forums on the main page maybe?

-Rabid Bird

**John Scott** · 11-10-2003, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rabid Bird

A link to the forums on the main page maybe?

-Rabid Bird

Every page of the site links to the forums.

Coffeee™ · 11-10-2003, 03:59 AM

Oh ok, I must have overlooked that.

-Rabid Bird

**LazyJim** · 11-10-2003, 04:50 AM

Rabid do't blame yourself - maybe it just wasn't in an obvious place!

*edit*
I can't see it either!
Where's that link John?

Webnauts · 11-10-2003, 05:14 AM

As you moderator LazyJim mentioned in a post of him: A site cannot be usable if it cannot be accessed.

Therefore you must consider making the page accessible.
About the browser compatibility problems of the page, I think you would like to know about several code errors I found.

Line 10: HTML 4.01 and XHTML require that the "style" element have a "type" attribute. For example, type="text/css".

Line 17: The attribute value "#F7F5EE" for the "BGCOLOR" attribute was not enclosed in single or double quotation marks when it must be. In HTML 4.01, attribute values containing characters other than A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hyphens, periods, underscores, and colons must be quoted. In XHTML/XML, all attribute values must be quoted. Quotes are recommended even if they are not required.

Lines: 18, 75, 77, 79, 82, 100, 247, 266: The attribute value "100%" for the "HEIGHT" attribute was not enclosed in single or double quotation marks when it must be. In HTML 4.01, attribute values containing characters other than A-Z, a-z, 0-9, hyphens, periods, underscores, and colons must be quoted. In XHTML/XML, all attribute values must be quoted. Quotes are recommended even if they are not required.

Lines 72, 81, 84, 94, 106, 246, 249, 264, 268: The "HEIGHT" attribute has an invalid attribute value "*". Try using one of the following values: a percent, a positive integer, or "0" (zero).

Lines 131, 181, 182: Found an ampersand '&' but could not find a following semicolon for a properly formed character entity. If you want to actually display an ampersand, such as in "John & Webnauts", then you should use the character entity "&" as in "John & Webnauts".

Line 205: The end tag for "a" (opened in line 205) should appear before the end tag for "b" (nesting error).

Line 466: The end tag for "small" was found, but "small" was never opened, has been ended too many times, or cannot have an end tag.

OTHER ISSUES:

- A document type declaration should appear as the first line (line 1) of every HTML document. For example, for HTML 4.01 Strict documents, <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> should be the first line. For HTML 4.01 Transitional documents, the first line should be <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">. For HTML 4.01 Frameset documents, the first line should be <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">. Although HTML recommendations generally require this line, most browsers probably ignore it. If you are using HTML Validator's integrated editor, then you can add this from the Tags menu and/or from the Tag Inserter.

- HTML 4.01 and XHTML require that the "alt" attribute be used with the "IMG" element. The "alt" attribute is critical for accessibility. It lets authors specify equivalent text to serve as content when the image cannot be seen or displayed. Use alt="" when alternate text is not appropriate, such as when images are intended to format a page (such as spacer images).

Line 5: <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" ... > has been used more than once.

Line 7: <META HTTP-EQUIV="imagetoolbar" ... > has been used more than once.

Line 11: It is recommended (and common practice for HTML (not XHTML) documents) that text contained in a "style" element be enclosed in a comment () for backward compatibility with pre HTML 3.2 browsers that do not support the "style" element. This prevents them from actually displaying the element's content. For example, use something like <style></style>.

Line 326: The "style" attribute has been used but a default style sheet language has not been defined (note that HTML Validator would not see this declaration if it is sent as an HTTP header by a web server). HTML 4.01 and XHTML require this for valid documents. For example, include this in the "head" section of your document to specify "text/css" as the default style sheet language: <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">. See http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/present/s...#default-style If you are using HTML Validator's integrated editor, then you can add this from the Tags menu and/or from the Tag Inserter.

I hope this info is useful for you.

Jazzee · 11-10-2003, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LazyJim

Rabid do't blame yourself - maybe it just wasn't in an obvious place!

*edit*
I can't see it either!
Where's that link John?

It's in the right nav.

**LazyJim** · 11-10-2003, 07:17 AM

oh yeah under the 'articles' heding

Jazzee · 11-10-2003, 08:09 AM

Probably should be across the top.

I, Brian · 11-10-2003, 08:13 AM

Good call, Webnauts - good pointers there. Some are merely issues of compliance (for example, Google doesn't use quotation marks for its values). Darn useful feedback, though.

For myself, I simply like the design ethic of IMR - there's something very art nouveau about it all. It gives the site a very real sense of identity.

As for browsers - yes, test everything in Mozilla! Learned that to my cost earlier, but managed to get some input on my CSS faults. Almost always, it's little errors. IE6 let's webmasters get away with a lot, but Mozilla is very unforgiving. I've noticed a lot of webmasters now using Mozilla Firebird over IE.

Webnauts · 11-10-2003, 09:46 AM

I use mainly Mozilla Firebird myself.

Inochi · 11-10-2003, 09:54 AM

the site is very useable and you can find exactly what you want, but i dont realy like the design(graphics, header, etc).

**LazyJim** · 11-10-2003, 10:20 AM

I think pretty much the opposite to Inochi on this one.

SVB · 11-10-2003, 10:57 AM

I really think the menu should be on the left and not the right. Dunno why, it just feels better. I naturally look to the left for a menu because it seems to be much more common than the right. I actually never noticed the menu before until looking through the site again from this topic lol

**LazyJim** · 11-10-2003, 12:02 PM

Using well known interfaces is a good and well known 'trick'.
No reason to not 'break the mould' though!

AcRoNym · 11-12-2003, 03:16 PM

you mean familiar navigation conventions, interfaces are drawn in photoshop like deviant art or phong thats an interface.

**LazyJim** · 11-12-2003, 04:40 PM

No I mean like putting the HOME link in the top left and navigation top or left, search box at the top-right or top-middle.

Having blue hyperlinks, drop-down menu bar, 'home' as the name for index page,

It revolves around the fact that if the user recognises the elements of the interface then they don't have to learn a new system, if the elements of the interface are placed the same as they expect, the find them easier and faster, and these both add up to the fact that it's faster to use 'familiar' interfaces and users feel more comfortable.

TeKBuzz · 11-12-2003, 05:42 PM

Spent about 3 hours going thru the site (its great). Only thing is ATLien told me i needed to sign up for the forums, now either im a dumbass (perfectly reasonable explanation of the event) or there aren't any links to the forums from the main site.... Other than that everything has been covered.

::edit:: Forgive me... the answer is that im a dumbass (I even missed that there was a second page to this thread!!!)

**LazyJim** · 11-12-2003, 07:02 PM

lol at least you admit it!

Welcome to the forums by the way!

Coffeee™ · 11-15-2003, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jazzee

Probably should be across the top.

I totally agree. Ask how many people found the forums via the main site. Maybe 1 or 2!

-Rabid Bird
IMR's Playboy

dkcy · 11-23-2003, 03:40 AM

errmmm i also took quite some time to find the forum link too