16 Top Website Quality Assurance Checklist for Web Developers

Are you a web developer?

Given a chance, every Tom, Dick and Harry is into website development today.  So, in this fast moving world of technology, how do you stay unique and hit the consumer eye?

Folks, the key to your customer’s heart is nothing but “quality”.   No matter what sophistication you apply to your website, quality is the only factor that drives your business, towards its goal of customer acquisition.

Your website is the online window that presents your business to the people in the real world. Each and every single entity on your website starting from the site’s color, design, functionality that includes ease of navigation and even the content to the loading time, actually matters.

How can you ensure that these components have been organised accurately and with utmost precision? A proper analysis and testing of the functionalities is an inevitable part of the project development cycle, which is where the quality assurance team comes into the scenario.

Working hand-in-hand with the quality assurance team, at each and every phase of the website development will ensure that it is bug free and together, you can devise a strategy to exhibit uniqueness and professionalism in what you do.

Quality Assurance Checklist for Web Developer:

How can you be Impeccable?

1. Open and ready to approach attitude

If you are working as a team, then the first and foremost step is communication, which needs to be crystal clear. It is necessary that you explain each and every module to your team members without leaving any space for doubts in their minds.

Remember, that it is each of their individual efforts that will churn out the desired final output. Make sure the design is clear to your team members.

You might have provided a paper presentation of what you expect of them to do for you. But that is not all! Communicate with them about your plans, and also ask for their valuable suggestions and opinions to bring in innovation and maintain uniqueness throughout. Contemplation and brainstorming generates better ideas when it comes to teamwork.

Regular meetings and exchange of thoughts can have wonderful results

2. Perfection in Design

This is where you need to view things from your client’s perspective and how they want the business to appear to their potential customers. Website is the platform which provides the mirror image of their product to the target audience out there.

Bring uniqueness to your design; simultaneously ensure that you do not break the client’s design concepts and specifications to yield the expected results.

3. Content Management with High Standards

There is no change to the good old saying “Content is King” and will always continue to rule the online world of marketing. Curating a content that is fresh, interactive, readable and easily understandable will open the doors to your customer’s heart.

Studies and surveys show that crawlers tend to stay on a site for hardly a few seconds of which the time they dedicate to reading the content is even lesser than that. An article on HubSpot tracks how 55% of visitors spend fewer than 15 seconds on your website and this proves what we have already discussed with regard to your content presentation.

We do not recommend copy-paste technique for your website’s content as it needs to be unique and without blunders.

“Let us discuss some points which will help us to have a website  with  Zero Probability of Errors”.

4. Creativity with common sense

Appearance of your website is like a litmus test that determines whether your website has the powers to appease the crowd out there. So you need to make it attractive and not flashy at the same time.

 “Remember that first impression is always the best impression!”

• Wise usage of space
• Leave enough white space for your content to breathe
• Avoid irrelevant images
• Poor readability
• Avoid contrasting colours  & inappropriate font size
• Avoid Broken links & Validation errors
• Cross Browser compatibility
• Don’t forget to change your Email ID from the Site
• The Copyright year should be the year when the website is launched

5. Content is the King

  Your website is the platform that takes your business to a global audience. Remember it is not just the local people that will come to you, but a wide range of people from different parts of the world will visit you. Be ready to face them and appease them.

The kind of content that you curate and the way you present it, indeed matters when you have a larger audience to appease, with the rat race growing fiercer, the each passing day.

When you are already spending time and money on curating exquisite content for your website, there needs to be a quality check on the content to assure it is in synch with the audience interest, with no compromise on its quality and uniqueness.

These are some of the common content writing practices that you need to get rid of at the earliest, for better results:

• Avoid Spelling and grammatical mistakes
• Provide space between words
• Spacing after punctuation is necessary
• Start a sentence with capital letter
• Check if there is any discrepancy in the content
• Unorganized content layout
• Check the caption. Do not place full stops between your captions.

 6. Functionality is our watch word

Consider that you recently got a beautiful mansion. But you are not able to lock the doors. You have spent all your hard earned money on building a mansion that is open to all. What use is that? The same is the case with your website. You were striving really hard to build a website that is perfectly splendid, but does not function as per the client specifications.

How do you expect your client to garner customer attention or generate leads with such a website? All in vain! Now stop worrying!

Here are some tips to help you with your efforts in website development and its functionality process:

• Ensure a proper navigation
• Avoid communication errors-Newsletter subscription, Contact information etc
• Provide a comment section to login or register before the user starts filling the application
• Check if all the links are functional
• Double check E-commerce site functionalities

7. E-commerce Functionality

E-commerce websites are your online stores where people make their purchases with just a click on the mouse or with a tap on their Smartphones. You need to constantly stay updated and come up with innovative ideas that feed their soul.

Creating an impression is directly proportional to the number of online users of your website. A blog published by kissmetrics with an awesome infographics gives a deeper insight into what customers are looking for on an E-commerce website.

• Reduce the Loading Time
• Provision for user to Delete an Add, Order etc
• Provision to log in & log out
• Proper Transaction calculations
• Error in sending mails

Remember you are not alone in your trail, there are others waiting to trap the prey and they are also well-focused as you are. Even an increased loading time can repel your customers.

There are certain programming standards that you need to start following today to reduce the loading time to nil or minimum.

Some of them are mentioned below:

• Remove Broken links
• Focus on Content Area
• Optimize Images
• Optimize Large Files
• Use Clean CSS
• Optimize PHP Codes

8. E-Mail

A lot of things can happen over just one mail. It can range from just providing valuable information to huge business transactions. So, make sure that mail sending never fails. And also don’t forget to validate E-mail ID.

 9. Call to Action (CTA)

A CTA is the link between the regular content that your potential customer is interested in, and a page with a more high-value offer on it (the landing page) that is relevant and interesting enough to persuade your visitor to complete a short form.

CTA is one of the proven strategies to seek user attention and this is why we recommend it. First of all make sure that it works. Your CTA should really POP OUT. The message in your CTA should be precise and to the point. The sooner you get to the point, the better your click through rate will be.

If it could have a contrasting color from the color scheme of the webpage, while still fitting in with the overall design, it’d be more effective.

Christian Vasile, blogger with iPaper in his blog on How to create the best Call-To-Action provides a detailed idea of the strategies that you can implement while designing CTA’s.

Perfection is a lot of little things done right!

Now, that we are done with the basic blocks of website building, let us take a deeper glide across the other relevant factors that needs immediate attention.

Even if you have done n-1 points perfect, the n^th error is what you will have to pay the price for!

• Provide standard validation messages
• Provide style and color combinations for confirmation mails similar to the site
• Include Company Logo
• Provide Company name in the address Page
• Cross Browser Compatibility
• Customize 404 Error Page
• Don’t miss out to highlight all the links and buttons

These are some of the very simple, yet ignored website quality assurance checklist that people forget to implement in their website development process and are scanning thoroughly to identify the pitfalls that fails their business.

And last but not the least make your website user friendly!

10. Checklist for clients:

Who is it that you are developing your website for? There is someone who is going to generate business and sales from the website you are developing and it is obviously, not the end user, but your client for whom you are working.

Unless you know what they want how are you going to give them a website that is intended for their end users?

You need to maintain a checklist which contains the questionnaire pertaining to your client requirements. Get it filled so that you can examine through it while working on your projects and ensure that whatever you are doing is appropriate.

It helps you to know what it is that they are looking for and then, create a perfectly customized solution to fit into their needs.

11. Logo Design checklist:

The logo of your website is as important as designing any other components of your website. So, when your client reaches you out with a requirement for a website along with the logo, here are certain things that you need to work upon.

1. Whether the logo communicates the business
2. Whether the logo is easily relatable
3. Whether it will stay etched to the memory of your audience

Create a moodboard and get it reviewed by your client. You will know what works well!

12. Checklist for the website design in general:

Though, we have already discussed your website, it is also necessary that there should be a general list that you must be following and here they are:

When it comes to the coding part these are the things that you need to be working on:

1. The format of the Doc type being used by the site
2. The character set used by your site
3. Is your site implementing a valid HTML and or XHTML?
4. Are you implementing a valid CSS for your site?
5. Are there any CSS hacks involved in your site?
6. Are you implementing any classes or ids that are unimportant for your site?
7. What kind of code structure are you implementing for your site? Cross check with the testing team for its validity!
8. Examine for broken links! Do not ignore this, you might be unaware but there can be many!
9. The speed of the site in terms of each page?
10. Are there any Javascript errors on your site?

When it comes to the content part check for the following:

The alignment between presentation and the content! This degree needs to be measured from all aspects.

13. Typography checklist:

When it comes to content this is one of the major factors that will be taken into consideration. The typography that is being followed!

Usually, experts say a consistency needs to be followed across, but still keep it in your checklist as a priority so that your client does not have to suffer a bounce rate because people don’t like the way content has been formulated on the site. It does not happen usually.

Designers are too focused when it comes to the typography that they will be using for designing their website.

But, there are others who do not consider fonts to be an important part of a website design that drags user attention to it. So, as a safer option always cross check it before you are ready to go live.

You can find the checklist that needs to be examined when fitting in the typography for your site researched and documented by experts. Depend on these sources and it will prove helpful.

14. Improvising your site’s speed and performance:

Yes, you read it right! It too has some checklists and this will decide how far your site will stay in the long run.

Unless your site is ready to exhibit some extraordinary performance at an unbelievable speed there is no chance that it will stay.

You want your site to be a hit and not a flop which will spread word about how you mess up things and people’s business. Honestly, no web designer wants that happening to them.

So, gather your smart brain up and make sure you are testing your site’s speed and performance.

But, there should be some kind of checklist that needs to be followed when it comes to your site’s speed though performance is another aspect that is too hard a nut to crack when people have a lot of other site’s out there offering the best performance.

To be simple and precise, it can be summed up as a website that is free of errors, friendly, standardized and customized to be compliant with any kinds of devices or browsers.

Also, it should load quickly as soon as the visitor clicks the link. No one has a lot of time to waste waiting till the site loads. Everything needs to happen in a jiffy. People are too busy!

These are just the basics but the ultimate checklist to gearing up your site’s performance and speed is too long!

15. Watch out the usability:

Usability is one of the most important factors that you need to consider when submitting your site for a quality assurance test.

A site that is weak from the usability point is useless.

If you have a site that flaunts a lot of beauty but confuses users rather than convincing them to take an action, then it is better that you do not create a site at all. So, what could be it that your visitors might love to see on your site and would want to make a deal with you?

It could be something like:

• Navigation
• Logo of your site
• Buttons and links and their visibility
• Content that conveys the message
• Site search should be easy to access

But, there are more and this checklist needs to be examined with your site before you go live.

16. Search Engine Optimization checklist:

This is the foremost important checklist that needs to be handed out whenever a site is being designed.

In fact, the SEO’s might be performing their tasks last, but unless they do some serious work, how do you expect your site to be found?

And, how do you ensure that the activities performed by these SEO analysts will take you to the top of the search engines?

It is not an easy task for a website to reach the top of the search engines. But, an expert SEO can do that with ease.

• Researching the chosen list of keywords
• Analyzing the Search Engine Result Pages
• Creating a list of your competitors

These are just the basic checklist activities that you need to examine. But, there are more to be included in the same.  There is an ultimate SEO checklist that needs to be taken into consideration before you proceed.

Now, that we are done with the basic blocks of website building, let us take a deeper glide across the other relevant factors that needs immediate attention.

Even if you have done n-1 points perfect, the nth error is what you will have to pay the price for!

• Provide standard validation messages
• Provide style and color combinations for confirmation mails similar to the site
• Include Company Logo
• Provide Company name in the address Page
• Cross Browser Compatibility
• Customize 404 Error Page
• Don’t miss out to highlight all the links and buttons

These are some of the very simple, yet ignored website quality assurance checklist that people forget to implement in their website development process and are scanning thoroughly to identify the pitfalls that fails their business.

And last but not the least make your website user friendly!

You can refer some of the below-specified links on quality assurance in web development and website development company India, as these contain detailed information on developing flawless and unique websites, quite easily within the specified time frame:

➤ To deal with broken links – http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
➤ Some tips on Call To Action- http://www.inboundnow.com/5-quick-call-to-action-best-practices-to-follow-for-increased-site-conversions/
➤ To deal with validation errors – https://validator.w3.org/
➤ To compare with old site when you are rebuilding the site – http://www.copyscape.com/compare.php
➤ To optimize Page speed and tips on how to improve the same- https://gtmetrix.com/

After taking you through all these web developer’s checklist, we also want to take you through some important aspects that you need to be assessing on the day of your website launch.

Let us get this done locally before the world reaches out

• Let us create a backup by downloading the site to the local server
• Next, get the database exported to the local server
• We need a local static copy (maybe, at a later point of time) – you can get this by running the site sucker on the site’s current version
• All the sub directories of the site be imported

Audit

The Screaming Frog report is the most important and this must be generated:

• Before launch
• After launch
• Audit redirects during site migration

Point DNS

• Examine the name server or DNS on domain registrar
• You can always set up email and point MX records

  .htaccess

• The most important thing is to remove all traces of testing (eliminate the links used for testing)
• Insert redirects

Robots and Meta

• Examine the domain.com and robots.txt file – ensure everything is fine
• If you are using WordPress, then ensure that the search engine visibility is left unchecked.
• And now ensure that you have double checked <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow>

Contact forms

• Check whether the site uses send mail scripts.
• Examine <form action>
• Check whether the site uses SMTP set up through clients email
• Check whether the email data gets saved
• Finally, send a test email to the client – ask them to respond for verification

Google Analytics

• Use client emails for Google product accounts
• Then, install the Google Analytics UA
• Now you have to think about setting up the goal conversions

Google Webmaster Tools

• Get the sitemap.xml set up
• Submit it to WMT
• Now examine whether www and non-www are added to WMT
• Now fetch and render both mobile and desktop and finally submit to Google
• Now text the robots.txt
• Submit to Google
• Examine crawl errors – if there are any, fix those
• Choose Google Analytics Property and tie all related Google accounts together
• Check resources and page speed
• Run test
• If there are any errors, please fix.

We can always do manual checks

• Analyse whether there is a complete sitemap
• Examine vCards and their status
• Examine through each of the pages of the site
• Verify the 404 page
• Examine photos, footers, odd URLs, odd text and footers
• Examine the site for broken pages

WordPress

•         Here you should be creating client user, create email account from the client.
•         While creating email accounts from client, ensure that you create the user name and give them admin privileges
•         Turn up backups (as discussed) and caching

SEO and PPC Check

• Ensure that all SEO and PPC guidelines are implemented
• Apply these to the site
• Install WordPress SEO for WordPress sites
• Implement title and meta tag descriptions

Scans

• Perform the Xenu scan
• Examine and ensure that there are no broken links – if any, please fix these

Credentials and authenticity

•         Ensure that all accessibility credentials are with the client
•         The newly launched site should be available for online monitoring

For, further information with regard to quality assurance in web development, you can mail to us or drop in your queries here  and we will contact you. Acodez is a Web Development Company offering a wide range of website development services in India.