Q1 – HTML version and w3 validation
Its home page has been built with XHTML 1.0 Transitional and its html coding is fully validated by w3.org.
The front page has an advanced coding structure and some 460 lines of well-formatted html codes. However, it is also worthwhile to note that, this considerably large website is just another WordPress website, as one can understand it from the yellow highlighted part of this (http://www.georgianc.on.ca/connect/wp-content/uploads/gclogo.png) url where its banner is located:
Q2 – CSS codes
Home page has its own dedicated CSS file as an external CSS file, which is located in the directory called "2012-mainpage/css" and named "mainpage.css". The source code clearly shows there are 4 more external CSS files linked to the home page, for miscellaneous purposes.
Q3 – Client-side technologies implemented
JavaScript and jQuery have been extensively used. There are both external files and embedded codes. Some external files are linked to third party service providers, such as Google, many are plug-ins. There are advanced user agent detection functions and flash fixes, as embedded codes. Purposes of all included .js files have been explicitly posted by means of comments.
Q4 – How successfully the page was coded
In my opinion, the main page was very well coded. There are comments for almost anything that is not obvious. Naming conventions are self-explanatory and all elements' start and end tags, such as
<div id="choose"><!-- START CHOOSE -->
text is here
</div><!-- END CHOOSE -->
are well-commented.
Displays no significant changes even while viewing at compatibility mode of IE.
Navigation menu has been perfectly worked out, both functionally and aesthetically. Colour scheme is very elegant, social media icons are just as many as they are needed and only the most popular ones are included, font style and text sizes have been well chosen.
Q5 – Suggestions
As thoroughly testing such a large database-driven website with this many pages is far beyond the boundaries of this tiny assignment, I am not going to go into details. However, one major issue I noticed is that, as the user navigates, the document type varies, and becomes HTML4 for the rest of the pages, at least for a few ones I checked. That means there has not been a major renovation carried out for some time. I would suggest a consistently-applied document type.
The 1640X353 pixel .jpg "superwidebanner" as the college puts, is not as great an attraction as it occupies space, to my humble opinion. My suggestion would be to replace that 100K jumping silhouettes image with a repetitive non-human pattern that would be applied by using the "repeat-x" CSS code.
As an anti-video web developer, I personally would not have used videos to the extent they were used on the front page. However, this also is but a matter of preference.