Update your web pages

Mar 09, 2021

I'm not sure who reads these; however, incase someone this makes its way to a webmaster.... You should take the time to update your web pages. You have several pages that contain broken on non-functional links. It is a total waste of time searching a webiste for information when the information "promised" is no longer accessible. Below is an example:

 

https://community.articulate.com/articles/interactive-sliders-elearning-examples

5 Replies
David Roth

I understand; however, Articulate's web team should verify all the pages on their site and retire those that no longer function. When an end-user visits a website either organically or through search, and the site does not perform as expected (in this case links are either non-functioning or direct to questionable websites) the end-user will most likely leave and never return. Saying that you have no control over your own website is a bad excuse for not keeping your website up to date.

Thank you,

David Roth

Instructional Designer, Pedagogy & Media

[cid:26628558-14dc-48a1-943a-52973d08226e]

Exploration Center for Innovations in Teaching & Engagement

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

900 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92507
Email: david.roth@ucr.edu

Philip Roy

As someone who used to run a discussion forum on a commercial website, the amount of work required to check and re-check links for accuracy on a semi-regular bases would be staggering.

If Articulate automated this checking and a link failed, is the link broken or is the website briefly offline? If the link succeeds, is it to the original web page and does it have the same intent...or is it malicious?

At most, I think maybe we could ask for a "Report this link" feature on posts... but even still, the amount of work for Articulate to then check that link and edit the post (with an explanation)....yikes!

Philip Roy

There are loads of tools out there that can check links...that's not the point I was making. It was the effort required.

I have a bookmark checking app on my Mac, but for every error, it means going and visiting the link to confirm. Even then, links that don't fail may in fact be pointing to a site that has now changed and you don't know until you go and visit that site.

That's a massive undertaking given the number of posts and links on this forum...and partly why I was putting the onus back on users that want to report links that fail. Even then, I can imagine it being a massive on-going job.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi David,

Thanks for bringing this one to our attention, and appreciate Philip and Matthew sharing their thoughts as well. This is certainly an area we're always looking to improve and refine, especially given the end of Flash support and how many of these older examples may no longer work. I'll pass along the ideas here to our web team and we'll look at fixing up that link soon too.

In the future, feel free to share other broken links here in E-Learning Heroes with our team or send direct to our Support Team here. 

Lastly, David, I noticed that your email signature came through when you replied via email. You can remove that if you would like by clicking Edit beneath your response. Here’s a quick Peek video if you need help.