Who’s fault is it when website pictures don’t show?

Who do you blame when a website has broken links, non-existent pictures, and slow speeds?

I never really thought about this before, but I naturally blame website owners. Come to think of it, I blame them for almost all their poor user experiences. See here and here.

But “blame” is really too strong a word… What I really mean is that I hold them accountable for it.

But, in a strange but ironic twist of fate, I just realized I’m one of those websites.

Here’s an example of a post I recently loaded up on this tech blog:

The weird thing is that after a few minutes and still no pictures a quick refresh brings them all back up.

This has happened on more than one occasion.

Moral of the Story

Now, what can I learn from this? Whose fault is it? WordPress’ or mine?

I guess I found out that, well, It doesn’t matter.

In the end, the users of my site will still connect the poor performance and broken links to MY SITE.

So, in the end, it has to be my job to maintain and “test” out my site constantly.

But let’s be honest – it would be impossible to fully check my site using all the different computers, running all the different operating systems, in different resolutions, and with different browsers.

Now, that “support” tab who’s value I put into question seems like a pretty bright idea.

Possible Solutions:

Of course, there’s the basic link scanners that tell you which links are broken on your site. Here’s an example of one called Xenu.

But it seems rather static, manual, and not general enough. All it takes care of is finding broken links and not, for example, the load time of your website. And you’d think that WordPress would have something integrated into their system already!!! (ie. something that sends you a quick e-mail, telling you when a link is broken)

This would be a great problem to solve. What I would see is a third-party company or service, that basically does the link scanning, load-time benchmarking, and general basic things that really affect user experiences. Hmmm… sounds like a good idea. 😉

Any one have any other suggestions to deal with this problem?

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