Software Engineering [Final Year Project work]

The Output’s for this projects are:

* Link Portal to a directory of online companies
* Effective site design taking into account the Human Computer Interface (HCI) features
* Intelligent search engine feature
* List contact and details for the listed company
* Make portals more interactive so it enables the user to make more efficient use of it
* Validate my work using the W3C. If the coding used is clean, it will work on all platforms.
* Use CSS to keep the page file size smaller. Ideally, it’s better to use it so that people can disable it to view a "printer friendly" page.
* Structure the layout so the page makes sense.
* Use san-serif fonts. Like Arial, Helvetica, Verdana and Tahoma etc.
* Use a simple navigation system, so the webpage’s won’t confuse the visitors.
* Check the links, make sure they are all working correctly and the pages they are pointing to are still on-topic.
* Keep navigation under 3 pages deep. Use more links in a menu if the website is large.
* Images add to the file size of the page dramatically. Need to keep them small and use them sparingly.
* Check the images in both .gif and .jpg formats and use the smallest file size.

The items under consideration are:

* Loading time: Ideally this is between 6 -10 seconds on a 56K Modem.
* Does the website need special scripting for e-commerce search engine sections?
* International viewers: Are the needs for your international viewers catered for. Perhaps the website will need to be available in more than one language.
* Viewer’s browsers: Not everyone uses Internet Explorer, A growing number are using Fire fox or Netscape browsers, even pages that pass validation may need to be checked for browser compatibility.
* Cookies: Will the website need cookies for access to certain areas. Cookies are small text files put on the web browser from sites we visit, that saves you having to go through several registration processes time and again.
* JavaScript: Many simple web applications are run by a client-side script called JavaScript. Many surfers surf with it disabled to prevent pop windows and other malicious scripts from taking over their browser.
* To use a contrasting color scheme. To be careful not to alienate those with color perception difficulties
* Keep each page under 400K in size, people will not wait for your web site to load, they will go to other competitors
* Keep images to a minimum, not everyone uses software that displays them. This is more important than ever now with the multitude of mobile devices available.
* Keep the largest image 500 pixels wide or less or the end will be sliced off when rendered with different browsers.
* Implementing Google analytics & Ad words

Issues with existing websites/portals

* Proprietary tags, not everyone uses the same web browser.
* Flash, Java and JavaScript introductions. Not everyone has them installed.
* Page counters, they are inaccurate and misleading
* Too many effects on the pages.
* Frames; it is safe to assume your visitors know how to scroll the page up and down.
* Relative links, search engines will crawl, full (absolute) links.
* Orphan pages, if people want to stay in the site. Always offer them a page to go to when they are finished with a section.
* Images for links, those with images disabled will not be able to use the site.
* JavaScript or Flash stand-alone navigation systems as those with out the facility will not be able to get where they want.