Does your web site actually work properly?

Third party web site testing services

At a more serious level, the visitor may have tried to purchase a product or service and, for some reason, was unable to complete their transaction.

This translates as a lost sale, and that lost sale may well result in a lost customer who will never try to use your site again. For any business that has a growing reliance on the web, that is a serious situation.

Examples that we have seen include:

• A car insurance site that "lost" the details entered to obtain a quote part way through the purchase process if the user pressed the "back" button.
• An on-line retailer who required user registration, but whose "lost password" facility did not function.
• A ticket booking system that terminated the purchase process unexpectedly, leaving the purchaser unsure as to whether they had actually completed their booking.

The internet itself is not 100% reliable, and the occasional problem can occur, but frequently these problems are down to the design of the web site itself, or due simply to a lack of thorough testing.

Users can stop your site working for them!

Many users can select options in their browsers, or use add-on software, that can hinder your site from functioning properly. Examples might include:

• Use of "pop-up" blockers
• Unusual configurations of firewalls or virus checkers
• Disabling browser features, such as cookies or JavaScript
• Using outdated or unconventional browsers

It is vital when designing a web site to attempt to cover many of these situations, in order that the site can be made as robust as possible.

How do I achieve robustness for my website?

As a business owner, you shouldn't need to think through all of these scenarios, it should be down to your web designers.... but they need to complete the job, and testing takes a lot of time... A cost-effective and impartial solution is to have the site tested by a third party company such as WyeTec.

WyeTec offer third party web site testing services at many levels, and cover a comprehensive range of scenarios such as:

• Cross-browser compliance. Does the site work with Firefox, Opera, IE7?
• Browser configuration testing. Does the site work with Javascript and/or cookies disabled?
• Can the site be "broken" by normal use, e.g. the "back" button, repeated button presses and simple but unexpected navigation routes?
• High concurrency (many users at the same time)

At a deeper level, a site can be investigated for its resistance to deliberate attack. For instance:

• Can any log-in system be bypassed or hacked?
• Are passwords or usernames left behind on the visitors PC?
• Can the purchase system be tricked into thinking that a purchase has completed when it hasn't (a "callback" attack)?
• Are input fields protected against database manipulation (a "script injection" attack)?

If you have a suspicion that your site is not all that it should be, contact us for an informal but confidential discussion.

 

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