Validation checklist

“ W3C standards and compatibility ”

In order to verify the site's usability across browsers a validation checklist was followed prior to publishing this site. These steps do not seem to be published in any one place so they are listed them here in the hope that it helps other developers to write valid and browser friendly web pages.

Each webpage was subjected to the following tests:

1. The page was verified by a W3C validator to verify the HTML5.
2. The external style sheet was verified by a W3C CSS validator to verify the style sheet content.
3. The page was validated on a mobile website validator.
4. The page was viewed in multiple browsers and browser versions looking for compatibility issues. Some rendering differences are expected between these browsers.
5. The print preview was viewed in both Firefox and Internet Explorer. There can be problems if multiple layers are used.
6. The content of the page was spell checked.
7. The responsive design was checked at various screen resolutions.
8. The page was viewed with large fonts set in the
   display properties > settings > advanced > font size / DPI setting.
9. The page was viewed with JavaScript disabled in the browser.
10. The links from the page were checked for dead or incorrect links.
11. The keywords meta tag was checked to ensure that it only included word sequences found on the page.
12. The title meta tag was checked to ensure that it was correct.
13. The “robots.txt” file was validated and its rules were checked.
14. The server log was searched for 400 or 500 series errors. In particular Error 404 not found. Note: If the server logs are not available, some link checkers can search for missing content.
15. The site's privacy policy was validated using a P3P validation tool.
16. The site's cookie functionality, with Internet Explorer and Netscape set in a high privacy setting, was verified to check the operation of the compact privacy policy.
17. The site's “sitemap.xml” file was validated, created to inform search engines about the site's pages.
18. Other people were asked to actively criticise the site.

If you have any additional suggestions that could be added to the list, please suggest them to the Webmaster.