As you are aware, there are issues regarding the work of Mr. Rigby T. Bear in developing
a new website for our newspaper, The Fort Dodge Messenger. In response to your
request for additional information in this matter and to your request for an assessment of
Mr. Bear’s work, I have prepared this report. In this document you will find some
background into the problems we’ve been having with Mr. Bear, the methods I used to
evaluate his work for us, and details of my findings.
Background Summary
Six months ago the board of directors decided that our newspaper’s website was outdated
and needed rebuilding. The company contracted the local web-developer Mr. Rigby T.
Bear to redesign and rebuild our website for a substantial amount of money. He was
required to improve the functionality and design of our website while complying with the
current technical and legal standards.
Since his hire, he has not been meeting deadlines. He has also become allusive and
increasingly hard to contact. In addition, he has frequently failed to show any viable
progress of his work at company meetings and the samples of his web page designs so far
have not been useable.
This has led the board of directors to the belief that Mr. Rigby T. Bear cannot complete
this job to the satisfaction of the contract. They wish to nullify the contract and recover
as much of the money paid to Mr. Bear as possible. However, before our lawyers will
pursue this, they want substantial evidence that Mr. Bear has not been meeting the
requirements of the original contract.
Evaluation Methods
There are many areas of Mr. Bear’s work that I have assessed. These areas include:
•
•
•
•
A general evaluation of the functionality of the website using different
operating systems and web browsers
A validation of the site’s cascading style sheets (CSS) and of its markup in
HTML and XHTML formats
It’s compliance with Section 508 Standards
An evaluation of functionality and usability when viewing the webpage
without JavaScript, CSS, or images.
In order to assess the site’s CSS I used CSS validation software from W3C. I used
similar W3C software to validate the markup of the site (its HTML and XHTML). To
test the web page’s compliance with Section 508 standards, I used software from
HiSoftware called Cynthia Says. Finally, I used web developer software developed by
Chris Pederick to disable JavaScript, CSS, and images when viewing the site.
Results of Evaluation
General Assessment of Website
The page functions and is usable when viewing the website with either Mozilla
Firefox or Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browsers. The two browsers were used
in Microsoft Windows XP SP3, Microsoft Windows Vista, and in Mac OS X
operating systems, and no differences in functionality were found.
Aside from distracting advertising space, the web page is well laid out and easy to
navigate. The page is made for a 1024x768 pixel display, and will not adjust to other
sizes. This means that if you are viewing the site in resolutions larger than 1024x768,
there is a decent amount of empty space to the right of the page’s content and the
content will not be centered. Likewise, if viewing in resolutions smaller than
1024x768, the page will be larger than the browser’s window and you will have to
scroll left to right as well as up and down to view the page. On a positive note,
magnifying the page to any degree does not seem to affect the menus or other
sections of the page to become incoherent.
Assessment of Webpage without CSS, JavaScript, or Images
When viewing the page without CSS, it is still usable. However, the nice layout is
gone. The content on the page becomes stretched and you need to scroll through
quite a bit to get to any specific part of the page. The biggest issue would be the
menu, the navigate links no longer appear in an easy to follow list. They become
bunched into a block of text that is somewhat harder to read through.
The menu is also listed a second time farther down on the page where the submenus
are also displayed.
I also assessed the functionality of the
website when JavaScript was disabled.
The biggest issue regarding this
assessment was many of the links were
no longer usable, specifically the story
title links and the links to the blogs
near the bottom of the page. The
menu was also affected in that the
submenus would fail to appear without
JavaScript.
Unlike the tests involving JavaScript and CSS, viewing the website without images
does not influence the overall usability of the site. All the links and menus are still
functional and take you to the correct pages.
Validation of CSS
The W3C CSS Validator found only two CSS errors in the page. The results of this
test are below.
These two problems aside, the website is valid in regards to its CSS.
Validation of HTML and XHTML
Many more problems were found in the markup of the HTML and XHTML of the
webpage. The W3C software I used found 663 errors in the markup of the page, this
means that there are significant problems involving some of the content’s coding and
ability to be processed by standard XML tools. I will include only a few of these
errors as examples.
Compliance with Section 508
Section 508 of the Disabilities Act establishes a set of standards regarding
accessibility of websites for people with disabilities. Part of the contract made with
Mr. Bear was that our new page was in compliance with these standards.
By using HiSoftware’s Cynthia Says, I have evaluated the pages compliance with
Section 508. Based on the software’s automated evaluation, the webpage fails to
meet these standards. This failure is due to a failure to comply several rules found
under Section 1194.22 of the 508 standards.
Conclusion
Mr. Rugby T. Bear has not been reliable and difficult to work with. In addition, the work
that he has produced is unsatisfactory in regards to the job requirements that were given
to him. When considering Mr. Bear’s lack of professionalism regarding this job
combined with many errors found in his work, it is my conclusion that he has not
satisfied his part of the contract and is unlikely to fulfill it. If you have any questions
regarding my methods in this assessment or my results, please contact me again.