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ICTWEB304 Assessment Task 1 Questions & Answers

Q1

Describe the difference between an XML Sitemap and a HTML Sitemap. List the benefits and disadvantages of using each.

An HTML sitemap is a webpage that lists links to all the pages of a website, presented in a user-friendly clickable format that allow users to navigate through the site more easily.

Benefits include website owners to organize their large and complex websites, able to create internal links which help with search engine optimization, and improving overall site navigation by listing all the pages on a single page. There are no disadvantages of using an HTML sitemap as having one only benefits the users and site owner.

XML sitemaps are meant for search engines to crawl through your entire website, written in a format designed for search engines like Google.

Benefits include making it easier for search engine bots to discover and index all the pages on the website, especially beneficial for large and complex sites, and XML sitemap communication with search engines will get the site pages ranked higher in search engine result pages. Disadvantages of XML sitemap are they need to be updated frequently because of web crawlers missing pages due to the sites size and complexity or when sitemaps generated forma database are crawled and indexed they become obsolete, hence the need to be updated regularly. Unintended pages may also be indexed such as administrative pages which metadata will need to be updated.

Q2

Evaluate three IDE’s (Integrated development environments) and provide a brief summary on the positive and negative aspects of each. Also, in your own words include how it would suit an entry level trainee code developer.

IntelliJ IDEA: a long running IDE for Java & Kotlin programming with a sleek appealing UI.It's positives are it has Smart Code Assistance where code is indexed, providing relevant suggestions to help complete code lines and automate tasks that may be repetitive. It's negatives are its heavy Ram consumption, usually hanging up low ram devices Even though the full version of this IDE would overwhelm a trainee code dev, there is a free version with limited functionality that'll let them try it out to see if it's to their reference.

Xcode: is Apple's IDE for macOS and is made free for apple users. Xcode provide tools to create apps for all Apple platforms and supports many popular programming languages, including Swift, Objective-C, C, C++, Java, Python and more. It's positives are its GUI builder that customizes your UI and makes it visually appealing and user friendly. A suite of tools for testing app functionality, performance and usablity. It's negatives are it's only available for developing apps for Apple's platforms limiting the scope of projects on Xcode. It also has a data size issue, the software itself and the projects take up a lot of space. If the trainee code developer is planning or required to work on Apple platforms and knows Xcode is only limited to them it is otherwise a good IDE for them since it is also designed for beginners and experienced alike.

NetBeans: an IDE for Java and its application types. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Solaris. It has extensions for other languages like PHP, C, C++, HTML5. It's positives are it's lightweight, has a user-friendly interface, UI developments tools and integration with other tools such as Git and Maven. It's negatives are that large projects can have high ram consumption, instability from long period usage and limited professional support directing users to mainly read documentation or online community consultation. NetBeans is easy to understand and designed for beginners and it supports more than one language. After getting past the initial stages for a trainee code developer it'd be best to look for other IDE's that can better help their needs.

Q3

Provide a brief history on web browser development and the issues encountered by web developers, specifically, the adherence to web standards.

In 1980, Tim Berners-Lee (aka TimBL) wrote a notebook program called ENQUIRE, which featured the concept of links between different nodes. By late 1990, TimBL had created all things needed to run the first version of the web — HTTP, HTML, the first web browser, which was called WorldWideWeb, and some web pages to look at. In 1994, TimBL founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), its vision was to standardize the protocols and technologies used to build the web. After that other technologies followed such as CSS and JavaScript, and the web started to look more like the web we know today.

These are Adherence to web standard issues encountered by web developers: In 1998 a beta version of Internet Explorer 5 was released, and it implemented dynamic HTML, which meant that professional web developers needed to know five different ways of writing JavaScript. Which resulted a group of professional web developers and designers that created the group Web Standards Project (WaSP). Enforcing W3C documents as standards. Calling out companies that join W3C and then misbehaved and those that focused more on creating new, often self-serving, features rather than working to get the basic existing standards supported correctly in their products.

From 2000 to 2007 web standards came more to the forefront and eventually created HTML5 with it's mostly backwards compatablity and powerful features and suitability for web developers.

Q4

What are website testing methodologies? Your answer MUST cover browser compatibility, and website functionality.

Website Testing refers to testing end-user scenarios on a website to test its behavior, it's methodologies include testing for its: functionality, usability, compatiblity, accessibility, performance, regression, and localization.

Some of the most important to test for are its compatiblity, where the developer must check the website looks and functions correctly across different browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. And functionality, which focuses on checking if all the features and functionalities of the website are working as intended such as links routing correctly.

Q5

What are the endorsed requirements of accessibility for all NT Government webpages?

The Northern Territory Government has endorsed the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), which defines how to make Web content more accessible to people with disabilities.

The requirements being the four principles of POUR which are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust;

  • Perceivable: Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
  • Operable: User interface components and navigation must be operable.
  • Understandable: Information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable.
  • Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
Q6

How do you think it’s best to organise all the assets used for a specific webpage? Think locally on your computer AND within the root folder of the website.

Using folders to categorise and seperate the file types within folders and to which site page. Such as page html and txt to the specific page on that website, labelled in a folder within the root folder of the website. Reusing of Images to reduce clutter, so having the images all in one place to be reused on multiple webpages ideally within the root folder. To keep organisation consistant, navigating the files organised on the local computer the same on the root folder of the website will help with knowing where assets are in both platforms.