W3Schools is a very large and comprehensive set of web development tutorials. The tutorials are located online at http://www.w3schools.com and cover a vast range of topics related to web development including HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, AJAX, SQL, ASP, PHP, and Flash. In addition to tutorials, there are also reference pages for the aforementioned tools, many examples which are interactive to some extent, and quizzes and certification programs to test the knowledge of the users learning from the site.

Overall, W3Schools is an exceptionally good tutorial website which has been around for quite a long time.

Good Features

• Large and comprehensive set of tutorials
• Examples are provided with each new concept introduced
• “Try-it-yourself” examples where examples can be modified and result will be shown
• Sidebar contains list of all topics covered
• Tutorials are simple and straightforward, but convey a lot of information
• Website and tutorials are very standards-compliant
• Tutorials are presented in a consistent manner
• Reference pages are provided for the languages covered
• Quizzes for each topic to test understanding of material

Bad Features:

• Navigation can be confusing due to large amount of content on page
• Advertisements on page distract from tutorial content and make navigation more confusing
• Interactive “Try-it-yourself” examples are on a separate page from the tutorial and generally require a button click and page reload to see the results
• Interactive examples not integrated with the tutorials in a very tight or consistent manner
• Large amount of similar but separate tutorials with no obvious flow or connection between them

Missing Features:

• No way to login and track progress through tutorials
• No tracking of quiz results
• Examples not fully interactive
• No way for users to edit tutorials