Archive for October, 2007

Free tools to test your site for accessibility

Following on from my posting earlier in the month where a US court issued two landmark decisions that the Target Corporation has to make their website accessible to blind people, web accessibility is an area which many nonprofits and charities still find difficult to implement on their sites.
In this article I’m going to show a few of the free easy to use tools available which can help you with testing your website not only for accessibility but also usability and web standards too. Later in the article, I’ll list some other useful resources and services that are available to help charities and organisations.

Accessibility and usability are key to a successful site. You will want your site to be accessible to the widest possible audience regardless of ability or browsing technology, including those who have visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments. Conformance to the W3C guidelines helps to make the Web more accessible to users with disabilities and benefits all users. In short, it makes the web a better place for everyone.

If you are the person responsible in your organisation for creating or updating your website, there are some free easy to use tools to help you test and examine your site.

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Choosing and Using Free and Open Source Software - new guide available

Many organisations and charities are increasingly becoming interested in free and open source software (also known as ‘Foss’) and wanting to learn about the benefits it can bring to their organisation. But where do you go to find out more, understand what it all means and discover what is available to your group?

Nosi, the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative has launched its new primer for nonprofit organisations - Choosing and Using Free and Open Source Software. An essential guide which helps groups to understand more about open source technology.

On the Nosi website introduction to the primer guide, it says that:

“It includes:

• case-studies of nonprofits of various sizes that are using open source software,
• a process for evaluating whether or not open source is right for an organisation,
• a live feed of Social Source Commons FOSS toolkits
• and useful resources and information.

Written primarily in non-technical language, the Primer is accessible to a wide audience, including nonprofit managers with little hands-on technical expertise.”

The guide can be read on the Nosi website or downloaded for reading later. One of the features that I like about the guide is that it is presented in an understandable language, includes lots of helpful information and lists useful links to organisations that can support with training and support for your organisation.
Good to see my friends at M6-IT listed there too!

There are also exciting developments taking place here in the UK in this area too, with circuit rider projects developing support for Foss in the voluntary and community sector, and I hope to be reporting about those very soon.

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Free Burma!

Free Burma!

I’ve joined with over 4,600 bloggers across the globe on 4th October. You can find out more at Free Burma!

Picture courtesy of Nickjais.

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Success with the law on accessible websites

A federal district court judge in California has issued two landmark decisions in a nationwide class action against the Target Corporation ruling that they must make their website accessible to the blind.
Read more about the case at Max Design.

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A different and free way to make a website - use a wiki

If you are looking for a simple and quick way to make a website for your organisation, there are many tools and choices available that are not only cheap or free, but also easy to use for the end user with no complicated need for in depth technical knowledge and ability. In this article, we’ll be looking at Wiki’s and how they could be used as a tool for your website. Their are many possibilities available when using a wiki. It could be used to create your website, support training and learning, creating a campaign or for sharing news, projects and developments within your own organisation.

Remember though when assessing which tool to use to create your website, there are a wide ranges of choices and options available. Wiki’s are just one of many tools that can help. Simple blogging software such as Wordpress for example, can also easily enable effective participation and for simple collaborative website projects.

Creating a website for your organisation using a wiki

A few weeks ago, Michele Martin of the Bamboo Project Blog ran a series of articles showing step by step how a non-profit organisation can use a wiki to build and produce a website. Michele used Wetpaint as her wiki tool.

Michele explained in her blog about why wiki’s can be a good way to produce a simple website for organisations.

“A couple of reasons why I think a wiki can be a good choice for building your site:

• Easy to set up and update - Wikis are really easy to use and require minimal technological expertise. Because of their ease of use, this also makes them easy to update because you don’t have to rely on your “web guy” to do the updates for you.
• Built-in Two-Way Communication - As you’ll see, wiki’s have built-in comment features, which means that you can get immediate and ongoing feedback from site visitors, something that many web citizens are increasingly expecting from any site they visit.”

Obviously, a wiki isn’t going to give you a professional custom designed website, but for many small to medium non-profit organisations, a wiki can be suitable for your needs.

They are free, very easy to use and update, with a wide range of different wiki’s available to choose from such as Wikispaces and Wetpaint. Many offer additional features such as customisation of the colours and layout. Some also offer the option of having your own domain name pointing to the wiki rather than a longer website address, and also you can also pay a very small fee to have any advertising removed from your pages.

How and why I used a wiki

I recently ran a training workshop with voluntary and community organisations to help with planning their website. I decided against using lots of handouts and traditional slide presentations, instead I would create a wiki to support the learning for the day. It was very easy to do and took very little time compared to creating seperate presentations and handout sheets on all the topics were were going to cover in our day.

The great part of using a wiki to support delivery of training is that the materials are available after the event for the participants to be able to refer back to rather than them having to look for their scribbled notes from the day. I also added photo’s from the day too. I found it was highly successful as a supporting tool. As we learned about each subject area, all the links to relevant websites were there immediately for them. I live resource compared to a static one. I’ll be using wiki’s a lot more in the future to share learning with others.

As a trainer using the wiki as a learning tool, I learn’t about using my wiki more effectively too with the way I displayed the content. I observed how users of the wiki were using the pages and how they found information. I had put too much text on most pages. At some point soon, I aim to break down the pages in to smaller chunks to enable better usability for participants in sessions, they had to do a lot of scrolling to find information and links!

Do you want an easy and quick way to learn more on how a wiki can help you to communicate or create a website?

Commoncraft have just released another of their fun and lively quick video’s on Wetpaint Wiki’s in Plain English, which has been commissioned by Wetpaint, a company that have created an easy to use wiki. Instead of showing the technical parts of what a wiki is, it delivers how you could use wiki to share your subject, and how you can easily create a connected community.

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In the pink!

Regular readers will have noted a drastic colour change today on my blog.
It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. From politicians, to the public, to the press, it is a time when focus on breast cancer is at its very highest across the world.

Pink is the colour during Breast Cancer Awareness Month hence the new look to my blog during October. You can find out more by searching on the internet for breast cancer awareness charities and nonprofits to learn how you can help to raise funds, spread the word and take part.

Bloggers and website designers like myself are joining in with awareness raising across the globe by turning their sites pink for the month. You can find out more at Pink For October.

I’d love to hear from you if you go pink - Please do leave a comment with your weblink.
Michele Martin at the Bamboo Project Blog has joined me in being pink for the cause too!

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