Comparing user tracking and log files, 24ways, odds and ends
I have updated web.uwaterloo with an article comparing Google Analytics with AWstats. There will be more documentation posted on or around the 15th as well with regards to the search and a few other tid bits including a podcast for the WatITis conference sessions. If you are counting down the days of this festive period for the big day of presants, check out out the 24 ways – the advent calendar for web geeks.
Vincent has also fixed the case sensitive problem we were having with tracking search terms. Its now case insensitive so the term tracker should be better represent what people are searching for.
…and we have more than enough people signed up for usability testing. We are just in the middle of it now. There will likely be some more testing in January and we will be in contact with those who already signed up first before we go looking for more. Thanks everyone who signed up and participated so far.
Web Professionalism buzz and Dreamweaver
It seems Molly’s open letter to Disney Store UK started a real buzz around the web standards community about it means to be a web professional. There is certainly a good list of posts and a trail of comments on the topic so rather than try and summarize, here are three to start (you can find the others through these):
- Web Standards and The New Professionalism
- The New Amateurs
- A web professional can never stop learning
There are some good points brought up in those articles, particularly with regards to reaching out to the up and coming web folks with regards to web standards. I tend to agree with the thought that being a web professional means making an effort on your sites to move towards standards and accessible design. It doesn’t mean that your site has to be 100% standards compliant and accessible.
What I am wondering, do people even think there is such a thing as a web professional or do they think Dreamweaver will do it for them? The reason I ask is that I see many admin assistant jobs posted that require Dreamweaver experience and its not like an admin assistant doesn’t have enough to worry about in a day, why do they need to concern themselves with web development?
If its Contribute they need to learn, then that makes sense as it is designed for the amateur to maintain content. But Dreamweaver? Macromedia has made an excellent attempt at making Dreamweaver usable to the amateur but it can still be overwhelming for a new person to learn. If you are serious about the web Dreamweaver is the tool to get you into it, don’t get me wrong, but are tools like Dreamweaver hurting the perceived professionalism of web people?
The thinking of non-web folks appears to be a tool like Dreamweaver is all you need to publish a professional web site. It works doesn’t it? What is lacking though is the experience and the expertise to finish your site and do it properly. It’s a tool. If you buy a compound mitre saw are you a carpenter? Sure you can make cabinets but compare yours with a carpenters, which would you prefer to have in your kitchen while entertaining guests or trying to sell your house?
…and no this isn’t a gripe about anything in-particular. I think that people around here generally get that web work requires a certain level of expertise.
XHTML, CSS, Dreamweaver templates, and Contribute
Just around a year after putting together the Dreamweaver template for the CLF I have written an article for Macromedia’s DevNet that is entitled Modifying Page Layouts with Template Conditional Statements and Multiple CSS Files. If you want to make your own templates or just curious what makes them work in DW, this simple little article should help you out.
There are a number of ‘better’ things about the template in that article. The biggest is that the XHTML/CSS allows for total fluid design, has a little less code to achieve the layout, and offers an option to put #secondnavarea directly under the #primarynavarea. Sure the one with the article is simple (no graphics, no search, etc) but it would take very little time to make it look like a UW CLF web page. Funny how much you learn in a year 
Usability test take two
Now with a bigger group of people and more questions, the UW Web Usability Project Group is at it again. We are looking for 40 internal folks to test out the home page and give us some feedback. The old study is the posted on the CPA documentation site from there you can sign up.
The dates for the study are November 30th, December 1st, and December 2nd. You will get $15 in WatCard vouchers for 45 min or less of your time. Once we look at 40 more people from external audiences the final report will be posted along with some recommendations.
Update for web.uwaterloo.ca and search documentation
The main site for CPA’s web development has been updated. As part of the update I am working on updating content and streamlining access to that information. There is also a monthly schedule for updates and a better set up along the left for RSS feeds.
The big update is in the search documentation. We have added a dynamic graph of the most popular search terms and the total number of queries, accurate to the moment you load the page. If we find the page is popular we will have to change that.
Update: If you go the search documentation page you can grab the excel sheets of 101 169 search terms/phrases and the number of results in UW dir, UW keyword, and Google. Enjoy.
