The project is done. Now I need some serious sleep.

Aaron's CAS 206 Final Project

Click here for my new page!

1. 
   Who is your target audience? What design choices did you choose to attract your audience to your site?
   

   
   The original purpose of the site was to inform new and veteran runners who are considering participation in the 26.2-mile marathon event. I probably bit off more than I could chew with this project. I wanted to include lots of links to established on-line marathon information sources/authorities and include my personal lessons learned. I tried to mix text content with graphical content. I'm not sure if the arrangement worked out so good. I wanted to use more bullets and ordered lists, but I was having placement/positioning problems. The text of the site has more prose than I originally wanted to use. I used a layout table to organize my navigation links. I hope I don't have to spend too much time in purgatory for that one.
   



2. 
   What troubleshooting did you experience?
   

   
   Positioning was the biggest problem and I probably wasted a lot of time trying to figure that out. Then I made the mistake of fooling around with link state styles. I made a big mess and then I wasted time trying to figure out how to get back to something that worked.
   



3. 
   How did the images you use contribute to your website's purpose? Did your CSS style add to the "siteness" of your website?
   

   
   Yes, I think I had some success achieving "siteness" by using a consistent placement of graphics and text layout as well as usage of colors. CSS was critical to achieving the consistent look and feel that "siteness" requires.
   



4. 
   What style choices did you make to improve the readability of your table?
   

   
   Color scheme was pretty important to achieve sufficient contrast. I also used padding and text alignment attributes.
   



5. 
   How did the media you created contribute to the purpose of your website? What plug-ins does the end user need to display-play?
   

   
   I wanted to include graphics which were inspiring and that illustrated the topics I presented. Visitors of the site will need to use the flash-shockwave plug-in.
   



6. 
   Describe your validating experience?
   

   
   This was pretty straightforward. Using an incremental approach allowed me to catch most errors early in the development process. I really didn't have any problems with validation. Use of the embed and noembed tags caused some unresolvable errors.
   



7. 
   How did integrating SEO best practice change or improve your website?
   

   
   I was going to include a site map, but I underestimated the amount of time it would take to produce one. Use of keywords in headings, titles, and text will help with SEO, I think. I created a glossary of terms which included keywords. Here's something interesting about SEO... I wanted to include links to on-line authoritative sources to improve SEO. As it turns out, sources of quality information are not necessarily the most popular.
   



8. 
   Discuss your browser lab experience. Will you continue using the browser labs?
   

   
   Using the Adobe browser lab provided a way to test web site content in multiple browsers without having to install and execute them locally. This would be good if I did not have (or want) to install multiple browsers (and their various versions) on my PC. The drawback is that it takes awhile to load each page, and I cannot interact with the page once it is loaded. In the future, I intend to do some client side scripting and use other effects. In this case, the browser lab is probably not ideal.
   



9. 
   Discuss your SEO strategy to promote your website?
   
   
   
   1. Used Google Adwords to check for additional keywords
   
   
   2. Used the meta tag with keyword and description attributes
   
   
   3. I tried to link to authoritative internet sources. I checked their popularity, but I was more interested in quality (correct) content.
   
   
   4. I created a glossary of terms. I intended to create a site map, but ran out of time.
   
   
   5. I tried to include keywords in the title, headings, etc.
   
   
   
   



10. 
    Discuss all testing requirements?
    
    
    
    1. Validation of XHTML and CSS was straightforward (except for video media link).
    
    
    2. All links (absolute and relative) are functional.
    
    
    3. I used http://achecker.ca/checker/index.php to conduct accessibility tests. It told me that the "Document has invalid language code" and the "Layout table has a summary." I removed the summary from my navigation link table. "Table summary duplicates the table caption." I changed the table summary. "Embed element missing noembed element." Added a noembed element with the embed element.
    
    
    4. Usability overview: Improvements: I could have improved the site for usability my using less prose (more balanced text) and more bulleted and ordered lists, relocated a content link to a more visible region, and made my table a bit smaller. I need to get some other feedback on the usability.
    
    
    5. Adobe browser lab:
       
       
       
       1. Tested using Firefox 3.0 - Windows, Firefox 2.0 - OS X, Internet Explorer 8.0, Safari 3.0 - OS X
       
       
       2. Differences in fonts used, table border styles, video media border style
       
       
       3. No changes were made