Making Links 2009 is a nonprofit technology conference taking place in Melbourne in mid November. Last year the conference held an Intensive Web Developers Day. It was popular, so they’re doing it again, and I’ll be running one of the sessions. On the programme are:

How accessible is your website for people with disabilities?
In this interactive workshop you will be able to test your site using a range of tools. – Gian Wild from Monash Uni.

Make your website easier to use
Can your site users find what they want and perform online tasks easily? Is your site user friendly? User-test your website in this practical session. – Jill Sergeant, Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations.

What’s the best way to organise your website content?
A practical workshop on methods for developing your website’s information architecture and organising your content – Presenter TBC.

You’ve built it, but are people finding your site?
Measure the success of your website with site statistics, ensure your site performs well in search engines, and get your website noticed. – Jason King.

This full day interactive workshop takes place on Monday 16 November before the main conference starts. If you are already attending Making links you can attend at a discounted rate of $77, or you can just come to workshop for an amazingly cheap $130.

For more info, visit the Making Links website and download the programme.

The idea for this workshop grew out of the work I did at Infoxchange auditing small nonprofits’ IT systems and giving them advice. Over 120 visits and three online surveys we amassed a great deal of information on what nonprofits struggle with and learned a lot about how they can do IT better. I’ve turned the advice we gave into a training course.

ICT Management and Good Practice for Nonprofit Organisations
A one day workshop in Abbotsford, Melbourne
24th Nov 2009 from 9am to 4pm
Full details and registration form are available from Infoxchange’s Training website

WordPress MU

The Change Management Group wanted to use WordPress MU (Multi User) which is a version of WordPress that can host multiple blogs. WordPress MU can even be used to run communities of thousands of blogs. 99% of its code is identical to WordPress but that extra 1% enables you to do so much more. Although the site doesn’t currently host multiple separate blogs, the functionality is there for when they require it.

The WP-Remix premium WordPress theme

The Change Management Group also wanted me to install WP-Remix which is a premium (meaning you pay $75) theme for WordPress. It offers a way to get around the usual layout restrictions in WordPress by offering you a choice of templates for each page you edit. You want an extra column on your home page? You want a list of staff with thumbnail photos next to their details? Just choose the appropriate template. WP-Remix can be a bit buggy at times but the flexibility it offers makes it worth considering.

There are definite advantages to using a premium theme to build a website: the client can visualise what they’re going to get; premium themes are usually better coded than free themes; and they cut down on the design and coding work required if the site was to be entirely custom built; so you can jump straight into customisation.

Visit The Change Management Group’s new website.

• Theme Test Drive – allows you to test a new theme whilst your visitors still see the current one.
• Maintenance Mode – take your website offline and display a message instead.
• WordPress Database Backup – because most people forget to backup their website’s data. This plugin can do one-off backups but better still, you can schedule a daily or weekly backup to be sent to you by email.
• Google XML sitemap – invaluable because it automatically informs the Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines about changes to your site content.
• Akismet – essential because it prevents your site being deluged with spam.
• Search Everything – improves the way your search form works.
• Multi Level Navigation Menu – an easy way to create a great-looking drop-down menu
• Login Lockdown – detects repeated fails to login to your website correctly, and bars further attempts for a set time period.
• WordPress Secure – hides the WordPress version number from visitors and makes it slightly more difficult to hack.
• Bad Behavior – prevents spambots visiting your website.
• SEO Slugs – removes short unnecessary words like on, it, a, the from your site’s URLs.

Here are some other plugins that I’ve found useful occasionally:

• Stray Random Quotes – very useful for when you want to put quotes from people in your website. Despite the name you don’t have to display them randomly and this is a great way to create a testimonials page.
• Shopp – an inexpensive e-commerce plugin, see it in action on the ARISE website.
• Constant Contact Widget and MailChimp Plugin – if your organisation has an email newsletter, you should put its signup form on your website. Whichever bulk email online application you use, there may be a WordPress plugin for it.

Kathy Reid gave a talk on beginner’s WordPress. She’s an assured presenter and did a great job of guiding us through its basic features and how they can be used to edit the content of a website. In her advanced session later in the day I picked up some practical tips on improving the security in WordPress – WordPress balances out the need for security with the need to keep the product simple and there are ways to improve this. By the way, Kathy’s also a top knitter.

Simon Hobbs from Em Space is now presenting about Drupal, with a very visual, diagrammatic  presentation explaining how this CMS works. I’m intending to use Drupal more in future so this demonstration is a useful primer. Em Space have done some great websites for nonprofit clients.

I’m hunting round trying to find someone who can support an open source product called CiviCRM because a nonprofit organisation I visited recently are considering using it. It’s a client relationship application that can sit behind Drupal on an organisation’s website. Anyone out there know someone who supports CiviCRM?

Not having account lockout mechanisms in place, which stop hackers from repeatedly guessing passwords. That’s why on my websites (which use the WordPress CMS) I now use a plugin called Login Lockdown which locks people out of the login form if they keep entering incorrect passwords.

Charities often choose insecure passwords, which increases the chances of unauthorised access to accounts. Too many charities use their organisation’s own name or location as their password, sometimes with a letter replaced by a number. Anything that can be guessed is really poor security. LASA’s Knowledgebase has advice on choosing secure passwords.

Apparently charity websites tend to be configured weakly when first set up and then not they’re not updated to resist the latest security threats. With WordPress this used to be a big issue because new versions would come out and the web designer would be required to install them, but these days WordPress and any plugins in use can be updated by the charity itself with just a couple of clicks when prompted to do so.

There are many other ways to make a WordPress website more secure but you can’t assume you’ll never be hacked (it happened to me only last week). That’s one reason that making a regular backup of data is so important: I use a plugin called WP DB Backup which I configure to send  me a weekly backup by email.

One last piece of advice: open a free Google Webmaster Tools account. Apart from getting really useful information on how well Google can index your website, you can receive an alert if Google detects that your site has been compromised and once you’ve fixed the problem you can request that Google reinstates your website in its index.

Featuring its usual successful mix of practical workshops, panels, oral presentations and networking opportunities, this year’s conference addresses the twin challenges of the global economic crisis and environmental sustainability.

The ICT infrastructure stream includes sessions on installing services remotely, free and cheap tools, rolling out IT infrastructure to inexperienced staff and clients, cloud computing, IT security, saving money by working collaboratively and more.

The Community Building and Social Media stream features a wide range of case-studies on how organisations are using web 2.0 to engage, connect and empower their clients and communities.

Practical and interactive workshops provide great opportunities to learn new skills such as pod-casting, writing for the web, and managing e-newsletters, or to focus on how we can work together to minimise the risks of climate change.

I’m particularly looking forward to Gian Wild’s web accessibility workshop. Web accessibliity is not something that most nonprofits have got to grips with and Gian’s got good form: she worked on the very first Australian accessible web site and was the accessibility consultant for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

The site uses WordPress as its content management system (CMS) plus a WordPress plugin called Shopp to handle the store’s catalogue and payments. To begin with I found Shopp difficult to get to grips with: some of its problems were due to using an older version but upgrading didn’t go smoothly; and we had a problem with the payment page getting stuck in a loop. All that’s now been sorted out and the latest version of Shopp seems a lot less buggy. It’s actually not a bad product, with about the right mix of features and simplicity, and well worth considering if you want to sell merchandise and your site uses WordPress.

Getting drop-down navigation menus to work across browsers can be troublesome, but it now works ok thanks to the Multi-level Navigation plugin which turns WordPress’s very basic menu into a drop-down, slide-out version. That was a necessity for the ARISE website because it has a lot of content to navigate.

One of the unfinished features was the slideshow on the home page. I used a jCarousel horizontal carousel to enable lots of content to fit into a smaller area on-screen; clicking on next/previous buttons lets you cycle through the items. I love these carousels, they can be a great way to display news or tell a story.

But what if your site’s visitors are split into groups with distinct and very different needs and different intellectual abilities? How does a single website serve both people with a learning disability, and health and social care professionals? Let’s see how the Mencap website – a design I particularly admire – successfully tackles this.

Using video

Mencap’s home page engages the eye with a huge image of one of their clients and a quote from him. At this stage you’ll still see the rest of the home page and all the menus. Click the photo and you get a smoothly animated transition to a video of Ronnie talking about how he’s in charge of his own budget. This is a case of choosing the right medium for the right audience: video and audio allow Mencap to provide information without using a lot of text. Video is also used to tell stories and share clients’ own point of view throughout the website, including the sections for professionals and families: that strikes me as a good idea because it helps to reinforce the person-centred approach of the organisation.

Presenting information for people with a learning disability

Now notice the four large links and click the one that says My Life. Easily understood words that link to a landing page that’s obviously still on the same website, with the Mencap logo, but which has none of the usual navigation menus. In this section – obviously aimed at clients rather than professionals – we find limited text, just a few large links (including one back to the home page) and great use of video and audio. Notice how the Mencap logo’s colour has been used to indicate which page you are currently on. Minimalistic web design is used because it meets the users’ needs, not just because it looks good.

A more complex page layout for professionals

Now, back on the home page, click the big link that says Professionals and you get a very different experience. In this section you get all the navigation menus, plenty of text, more complicated sentences and jargon appropriate to the professionals using the website.

Resources

If you’re planning or designing a website for learning disabilities, what should you be reading? Start with some detailed advice from the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities (make sure you click the More Information link).

Then take a peek at Antonia Hyde’s slideshow about Rich media and web apps for people with learning disabilities.

Web Accessibility Pack for Voluntary and Community Organisations (booklet & CD)

Download the Web Accessibility Guide (PDF 1.7 MB)

This booklet from the ICT Hub is a practical introduction to web accessibility and tell you how to make your website accessible at little or no cost.  It explains what web accessibility is, the benefits and what the law says, as well as giving guidance for web managers, commissioners, designers and developers.

How to Use New Media Guide and New Media Case Studies

Download a copy of How to Use New Media (PDF 944 KB)
Download a copy of New Media Case Studies (PDF 701 KB)

The Media Trust published two booklets highlighting how VCOs can make the most of new media technology and giving practical examples of 10 organisations that have done it. I wrote several of the case studies.

LASA Computanews

Download and subscribe to the latest Computanews (PDF)

Lasa’s magazine Computanews provides straightforward, clear information on the use of IT for staff in small to medium-sized voluntary organisations. They often cover web-related topics. Also check out the very useful Knowledgebase, a collection of articles on all aspects — inluding online — of charities’ ICT.

Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission: A Strategic Guide for Nonprofit Leaders

Purchase Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission

With contributions from the top experts in the nonprofit tech field, this book provides nonprofit decision makers with information to make smart, strategic decisions about technology. This book hones in on how to manage technology in an organization and offers practical advice on critical subject matter unfamiliar or mysterious to many in nonprofits.

Website Owners Manual

Download a Free Chapter and find out more about the Manual

Just because you’re responsible for your organisation’s web presence doesn’t mean you know how to build a website. The Website Owner’s Manual is for IT managers and project leaders who need to put a website in place and keep it running with a minimum of trouble. It’s not actually on sale yet but based on the free chapter, the Website Owners Manual is shaping up to be the one book I’d recommend to a nonprofit organisation with a website to manage.

Future Focus 3: How will we use new technologies in five years’ time?

Download Future Focus 3 (PDF, 2.4mb)
This guide from the NCVO explores how developments such as the Internet, mobile telephony and digital television are changing the way individuals and organisations behave, from how we communicate, to making choices, to where we work. It explores the effects these changes might have on your organisation and suggests ways you can use this information to help make strategic choices and plan ahead for an even more successful future.

Website articles

Tips for designing (or redesigning a nonprofit website (TechSoup, June 2009)