Website Maintenance

Websites (like houses, furniture, software, and so many other artifacts) often need maintenance from the time they are ‘born’. We need to fix typos and broken/dead hyperlinks, change settings, even restructure parts of the website, but, mostly, just keep it up to date.

Many of the webpages use embedded HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which is cumbersome to edit with the software that supports this website. Maintainers will probably find it easier to use “Notepad++” (or similar) for editing text. Generally, the Verdana text font, which was designed for the Web, is preferred.

As much as possible, we recommend keeping in mind the following software development principles.

• Discoverability and Findability – Something can’t be used if it can’t be found ... and afterwards, ‘keeping found things found’.

• DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) – Rather than ‘copy and paste’, prefer writing something once clearly, then use hyperlinks to reference the text elsewhere on the site. In this way, when you need to change or update text, you change it only once.

• KISS (Keep It Short & Simple) – This principle is closely linked to ‘Occam’s Razor’, or “entities should not be multiplied without necessity”. (See also ‘Gall’s Law’, “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.” Think of evolution from single-cell creatures to humans.)

• The ‘Platinum Rule’ – Treat others as you would wish to be treated if you were ‘in their shoes’.

For ideas on designing and testing user interfaces, see

• Steve Krug. Don't Make Me Think, Revisited : A Common Sense Approach to Web (and Mobile) Usability.

• Steve Krug. Rocket Surgery Made Easy : The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems.