RMIT Web Review - Assessment (1998-09-22)

Curtin University: http://www.curtin.edu/

This screen has been assessed according to a working set of criteria available [on-line} at:

http://www.cinemedia.net/FOD/DuckDigital/criteria.html

Heuristic overview

A comparison of a range of university sites shows Curtin to be one of the best performing homepages when it come to accessibility browser compliance and general user friendliness.

The screen clearly identifies its users and provides them with effective tools. Curtin is the only university we could find that provides a LOTE option and compliant metadata.

Screen integrity could be improved, but this is a minor problem. Unfortunately, many of the other deeper levels of the site are not as well authored or as accessible.

The down load time for this screen was within the recommended range.

Download Time

URL	Size	Time (seconds)
http://www.curtin.edu.au/	8.57 K	2.38
Total	8.57 K	2.38
HTTP Request Delays		0.50
Total + Delays		2.88

Accessibility Suggestions:

Good work

Browser Compatibility Suggestions:

Good work

Metadata:

<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="curtinlink@www.curtin.edu.au"> <META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Curtin University of Technology is a University situated in Western Australia. This is the home page of the main site, called Curtinlink. From this page you can find anything to do with Curtin."> <META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Curtinlink, Curtin University, Home Page, Main, Front"> <META NAME="Classification" CONTENT="Official"> <META NAME="Expires" CONTENT="1/1/00">

Although this metadata is minimal, some of it complies with the Dublin Core emerging standard. Author has now been replaced by Creator and Classification is an in-house extension.

Prepared by Duck Digital [Voice] 61 3 96511510 [email] simonp@cinemedia.net