4. Technical Website Checklist

A good technical implementation provides a trouble free visit. A site that is slow or displays error message annoys your visitors and may cause them to leave.

4.1 Scripting Engines

Are your pages generated from a scripting engine (addresses will end with ’.aspx’, ’.asp’, ’.php’, .cfm’ and possibly others) ?

The following advice applies if your answer is ’Yes’:

Scripting engines place a load on the server. It may be better to have static version of your pages generated instead of generating on the fly if your website is slow.

4.2 Scripting Errors

On Internet Explorer 6.0 go into Tools/Internet Options under the ’Advanced’ tag. Make sure ’Display a notification about every script error’ is ticked (other browsers will have a similar function). Click on your pages and make sure no errors are displayed. Errors will be reported down the bottom left hand corner (your can do the same for other browsers for a more thorough test).

The following advice applies if your answer is ’No’:

Scripting errors may be stopping parts of your website from working. Get them fixed.

4.3 Slow Pages

Click throught the pages of your website (at least the important ones).  Are they slow to load or are there pages that are significantly slower than others to load ? 

The following advice applies if your answer is ’Yes’:

Have a look at the size of the page and reduce it into smaller pages.  If all the text for the page is encapsulated on one big table consider breaking up the page into serveral tables.  This will cause the page to be displayed as it is loaded instead of once at the end.  Reduce the size of any images you may have by applying appropriate compression to the graphics.

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