10b, c, d & 8c
Evidence of formative testing
In any software development, especially multimedia, the product must be tested constantly until it's complete. If I were to document all of the testing done during the production of the website I would have to show pages and pages and pages of endless screenshots. I believe that the completed product itself a better testimony to the amount of formative testing that was undertaken. However, two clear examples of formative testing are described below.
Working with XSLT correctly...
The screenshot above depicts me working with XSLT in Dreamweaver. XSLT is a language that enables you to transform XML (eXtensible Meta Language) into any XML derivative languages you wish. Well known examples of these are XHTML and RSS. It also enables you to sort the results of a search in XML (using XPath) by displaying them in the order you wish.
How does this apply to multimedia? Well, to provide the visitors with an "accessible", "easy to use" and "engaging" multimedia experience it is essential that they are able to gain access to the audio files instantly and in the way most comfortable for them. The product will provide users with a choice of sermon viewing options: by Date, by Title and by Book. XSLT will sort the XML accordingly and then transform it into XHTML for their viewing pleasure.
This required an awful alot of 'hassle' so I thought it to be a prime example of formative testing. For the XSLT to work it must also be valid XML. In XML you must declare all 'entities' also known as characters at the top of the XML document. The screen shot shows how I hadn't done this with the character: " » " (also known as '»') and how I hadn't closed the 'xsl:stylesheet' and 'xsl:output' tags at the bottom of the document. This problem was resolved and the finished product is proof of this truth.
Validating XHTML using Dreamweaver's built-in function...
Validation has been a key theme during the formative testing and the on-going production of the website, so the second example continues this premise. Using Dreamweaver's built-in XHTML validator I was able to quickly and effective identify any invalid code that I had typed unknowingly or any fatal flaws in my design. This in-built function is extremely valuable, stopping me from using online validators which can be painfully slow. Formative testing is most definitely inevitable in any significant piece of software production.
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