Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime

12.6. TEST YOUR COURSE

Test your course as learners may experience it. Install it on a computer that barely meets the minimal requirements and test the most common operations. Better still, have learners test for you.

12.6.1. Test on a minimal system

Test your course on a system that just meets the minimum requirements stated for your course. Be sure to test with:

• Earliest version of the operating system, installed with the default or minimum set of features

• Minimal required amount of memory (RAM)

• Earliest specified version of the browser

• Slowest speed connection allowed

Set aside an old computer that barely meets your minimum requirements. Reformat its disk and install the operating system and browser from scratch. This ensures that you do not have any extra fonts, plug-ins, or updates that would not be on the minimum required system.

Then test your complete system, installing each required additional component exactly as stated in your instructions. Better still, have a prospective learner do the test.

NOTE

For speed tests, always turn off caching and empty the disk and memory cache.

12.6.2. Test on all supported browsers

Test your course on all the versions of all the browsers you plan to support, not just the earliest versions you support. Sometimes something works in Version 3.1 of a browser and then in 4.0 it does not work. That neat feature you depended on in an early version may be declared a bug or security risk and programmed away in the very next version.

If you do ...