Proudly providing web design to charities, NGOs, social enterprises and other not for profit organisations since 1997.
Reward Footers – because your content is worth it.
I have a recurring nightmare: It’s 1996 and I’m trapped inside Internet Explorer 3.0. I can see the user – as they eagerly surf what exists so far of the world wide web – but they, alas cannot see me.
And let me tell you, I’m not just trapped anywhere inside this archaic space; Dante and his Nine Circles of Hell would be a day out compared to where I keep ending up. For I am cursed to pace the confines of the final circle of the web’s inferno; known better to you and I as – the site footer! Noooooooo!
A day out with Dante
The descent to my current dungeon started in the warm cheery glow of the page masthead or header. Surrounded by proud, perky branding; shiny new logos and boastful straplines that promised the moon on a string, I felt confident and full of hope for the journey ahead. Someone really cares about this space I thought.
As I waved farewell to the main navigation – talking animatedly amongst themselves – I could hear below me the healthy buzz of conversation coming from the home page content features and news headlines. Each page element participating in the healthy hum of debate and fighting for attention. What a party! Pushing my way though the noisy throng I felt I’d arrived at last. Here’s a space my voice could be heard in – if I shouted loud enough.
Sadly – as the ‘Donate now!’ button (what an attention seeker) bossily reminded me - my train didn’t stop here for long; my ticket not valid for this destination. A chill air found my feet and dragged me ever downwards – down, down. The light dimmed and the joyous debate above me faded away into silence punctuated only by a nagging, howling wind.
Rock bottom
In gathering gloom my feet touched page bottom. I could scarcely see my hand in front of my face. Shapes (demons?) formed themselves out of the shadows and tugged at my feet; tumbleweed blowing across a dusty and forgotten part of the page. I shivered and drew my coat around me.
So this was the footer. My final destination: An empty and forlorn place – devoid of content and purpose; drained of hue and form. Lifeless. Even my watch had stopped here.
I looked upward and could see – like a tiny star many galaxies above me – a glint of light that was the page content and the header above it. How different life had been there – how rich and fulfilling – engaging and thought-provoking. How people had cared about that place.
I bowed my head and slumped into a damp corner of the confine. My foot struck something solid. In the mirky half-light my hand explored a long forgotten and dusty relic. Some brave soul had actually bothered to venture this far down the page before and had left their mark in this God-forsaken spot – now silent and still as a grave. I read their last lonely desperate message to the world: ‘Site Content – Copyright 1996′ – and wept.
A happy ending
These days you don’t have to let your users suffer a similar fate to our allegorical hero as they venture to the bottom of your page. In the renaissance years since the dark ages of the Web 1.0, web designers have woken up to the fact that there is a whole new frontier of the page that they’d cruelly neglected as being ‘beneath (the valley of) the fold’. Here is an unexplored and virgin territory of prime land – ready and fertile for population with the new ideas, content, navigation and take-actions that the Web 2.0 (and beyond) has demanded.
Since 2009 the footer area has been re-claimed, redeveloped and redecorated. Rewarded for their brave and gravity-defying page descents (users do scroll!) today’s would-be web-explorers find a world of footers unrecognisable to their forefathers – a bright, open space for all where the possibilities seem endless and life is just beginning…
Related reading:
AOL circa 1996. The way we were.
Some examples of more rewarding rotund footers 2011 stylee.
© 1996-2011
RSS
RSS(Really Simple Syndication) provides an easy way to gather and display information from different on-line sources including news, events and blog posts.
RSS feeds are generally represented by an icon similar to this: 
.
RSS feeds save you time:
Rather than visiting your 4 or 5 favorite websites and scanning through for new articles, have the rss feed deliver all of these directly to you as the information is posted.
What is it exactly?
Each feed contains a list of articles from the website you have subscribed to. Every time a new article is created, the feed sends through a title, a summary, and a link to the full article for each item (the same goes for blog posts or events). This allows you to quickly scan the articles and decide which ones you want to click through and read in full.
How can I set one up?
The lists are compiled in XML(Extensible Markup Language) and you will need a feed reader like Google Reader to pull in the XML feed and translate it into a readable format.
When you are on your favourite website, click the icon 
(if the website provides one) and follow the instructions.
Click on the following links for an example of RSS readers, happy reading!
Myth Busting and Client Education
I am going to be shouting about the greatness of the following two websites and how much they can help educate you the client to the mysteries and many questions of web design!
The first site I am going to be championing the hell out of is Wee Nudge – Teach your clients the about the mysteries of the web. They have gathered some great resources on all aspects of web design including:
Some of the highlight of the site are the brilliant and simple explanations of each section, for example:
On whitespace: “Not simply ‘blank space’, whitespace is required to let the graphical and typographical elements exist in the desired composition. The print industry has largely contributed to the illusion that empty space is wasted space. Every square inch of room in a newspaper or magazine costs money and it can’t make that money back if it’s not filled.”
On the fold: “The fold is not as important as you think. The concept has entered into common knowledge and this has become a problem for the advancing web industry. Users do know how to scroll. If you squish everything towards the top of the page in an effort to get all your content in front of the user, you will only succeed in created an overcrowded messy page and turning your user off your site altogether.”
The second website that I always use to help clients discover the myths of the web is UXMYTHS. They list the top 32 myths of web design debunking them with real evidence.
Some of the myths that crop up in most client meetings are:
- Myth #2: All pages should be accessible in 3 clicks
- Myth #3: People don’t scroll
- Myth #4: Design is about making a website look good
- Myth #14: You are like your users
and my favourite of the list:
myth #0: If you read lists like this one, you don’t need to do research
Three reasons you need to write a social media strategy right now
Why do you need a social media strategy? Here are three very good reasons: Time, Money, Reputation.
This article will explain how a social media strategy can save you time and money while enhancing and expanding your reputation and brand.
If your organisation has a blog, a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a YouTube account, or even an e-mail newsletter, you are using social media. This means you need to create a strategy to make effective use of these tools. Consider the following:
For each social media platform, calculate how much time it will take you to keep it up to date and fresh. Who will be generating the content? Does the content already exist somewhere else and can this be adapted?
Will there be a cost for new artwork? Is this a one time only use of that media, or will it be in continuous use?
Does your organisation have branding guidelines for content, graphic use, style, and tone of voice? Will the social media content fit within the guidelines?
Cost is a very important limitation when dealing with social media, and the most expensive part of it is your time. Make sure your organisation has the time and money to dedicate to keep social media streams fresh, lively and relevant.
If approached incorrectly, social media can have negative impacts on your brand. It is important that you develop an appropriate tone of voice and educate yourself on how your social media platform works. For instance, on Twitter it’s important to understand how hashtags and re-tweets work.
If you have a communications officer, you may want to work through your strategy with them and create a “disaster” response in case something goes wrong. What if a well-meaning person sets up a Facebook page for your organisation without your consent? What if your Twitter campaign hashtag gets hijacked by a spam bot? You need to be prepared to respond instantly and positively in these situations.
If you’d like to learn more about creating a social media strategy, see my more detailed post or get in touch!
Internet Explorer 6
Do you remember at school there was always some idiotic thug of a boy sat at the back of the class mocking his fellow puss-riddled conformists for knowing too much? Well let me introduce you to the web browser Internet Explorer 6 (IE6 or Norman as I’m going to refer to it from now on) — the digital version of the feeling you get having to sit through a whole Nicolas Cage spectacular, to be fair at least Norman shows you something different every time you see him. All we can hope is that he will soon cruise the highway to hell and eternal damnation taking his evil sidekick Comic Sans along for a ride.
Q&A: The new Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) online rules. What do they mean for you organisation’s website?
By Jove! What’s this all about?
On March 1st 2011 the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was issued with new powers to rule over organisation’s websites, digital promotional and marketing activity.
What the…?! What does it cover?
Until now the ASA’s on-line jurisdiction has been over paid-for advertising and web-based sales promotion. From now on any charity website page that includes a donation request has to match up to these new codes. The extended remit also covers organisation’s online promotional videos, micro-sites and pages controlled by the charity on social networking sites (such as Twitter and Facebook).
Password security
Your website’s content management system can only do so much to protect your data; your password is the front line between malicious users and your website.
Do you use the same password on every website you visit? Is it your mother’s maiden name? Your pet’s name? Or is it 123456? The latter is the most commonly used password, based on over 32 million user accounts that have been hacked into, and if you use any of these, you make your account a very easy target.
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