Launching your website
| English | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| hosting | 托管 | tuō guǎn |
| domain name | 域名 | yù míng |
| accessibility | 无障碍 | wú zhàng ài |
A site that only works on your laptop is not launched
- Hosting 托管 puts your files on a server that is always on; a domain name 域名 points visitors at it.
- Between "it works locally" and "a stranger can use it" sit half a dozen things that only fail in public.
- This unit is the checklist that catches them before a marker does.
Test before you launch
- Click every link, including the ones in the footer nobody reads.
- Open the site on a phone, on a real one, not by making the browser window narrow.
- Try a browser that is not yours, because your own has your cache and your fonts.
- Check what happens with no images — a slow connection shows the alt text first, and that is the version some visitors read.
What is the best way to test how your site behaves on a phone?
A narrow window shares your fonts, your cache and your pointer. A phone shares none of them.
Write one launch check you would run that a visual review would not catch.
Example: "Unplug the mouse and Tab through every interactive element to check the keyboard order."
Accessibility is a requirement, not a feature
- Accessibility 无障碍 means the site works for people using a keyboard, a screen reader, or a magnified display.
- Keyboard order must follow the visual order, and every interactive element must be reachable by Tab.
- Contrast must be strong enough to read in sunlight, which is the same threshold that helps low vision.
- Text must resize without the layout collapsing, which is what
max-widthin the CSS unit was protecting.
The launch check that finds the most problems, in two minutes.
Unplug the mouse. Tab through the whole page.
If you cannot reach the menu, the form and every link, and if you cannot see where you are as you go, the site is not finished — and no visual review would have told you, because it looks perfect.
If a site looks correct, its keyboard navigation is probably fine too.
Keyboard order is invisible in a visual review. Unplug the mouse and Tab through — it takes two minutes.
Check what you are allowed to publish. An image, a font or a piece of music on your site needs a licence that permits it, exactly as a quotation in an essay needs a citation. The rule is the same one; only the medium changed.
Which need a licence that permits use on your site? Choose all that apply.
Everything you did not make. The rule is the same as citing a quotation; only the medium changed.
Do not launch with a placeholder anywhere. "Lorem ipsum", an untouched template footer, or a contact form that goes nowhere will each cost more marks than the page they sit on can earn, because they say the site was never actually finished.
Why does leftover "Lorem ipsum" cost so many marks?
It signals abandonment, which colours how a marker reads everything else on the page.