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In what appears to be a huge u-turn the ICO has issued updated advice and guidance on changes to the EU cookie law

The new advice seemed to suggest that simply requesting a website would constitute implied consent – removing altogether the need for explicit consent. As the law itself states that explicit consent is required for all non-essential cookies this left me a little confused. So I contacted the ICO to seek clarification on what exactly the latest update meant for website owners.  The official position is as follows:-

1) Implied consent is good enough if the cookies in question are unobtrusive and detailed in a clear privacy policy or similar documentation.
2) Implied consent probably wouldn’t be good enough for more intrusive cookies, like the third party cookies set by behavioural advertisers etc.

Woohoo!…?

If you’ve already moved away from Google Analytics this is a pretty annoying u-turn.

But if you planned to ditch Google Analytics and haven’t done so yet, it means that for the time being, you can relax.

Of course, following the change to Google’s privacy policy it seems there’s a danger that Google Analytics cookies could be among the most intrusive on the web. When I asked the ICO about this they said there were a number of lines of enquiry open with Google. Presumably initiated by the ICO, rather than Google’s lobbyists.

So our latest advice to clients is more or less back to where it was before this stupid, ill-thought out legislation surfaced.  Make sure you have a clear, concise and accessible privacy policy and ensure that each cookie used on your site is clearly explained and documented.  Obviously, try to keep cookie use to a minimum and only use third party cookies from reputable sources.

As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you require any advice or assistance on this or any other web related issues.

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Our friends in Brussels have been spending a lot of time discussing how we can protect our unsuspecting citizens from cookies. Don’t worry they don’t have their sights fixed on your favourite Chocolate chips yet. The latest zany legislation to emerge from the hallowed halls of Europe is the European ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC.

At it’s heart the new legislation which becomes enforced in UK on 26th May 2012 is well meaning. It sets out to protect web users from unscrupulous harvesting and use of their personal details, that’s got to be a good thing right? Unfortunately, the legislation really hasn’t been thought out particularly well, and in reality the legislation can only lead to a degradation in web usability.

Basically the gist of Directive 2002/58/EC requires that before any website places any and all cookies on a users computer, the user is first asked if they consent to the placing of such cookies. On the face of it this seems fair enough. But how do we implement such an option on every single web page out there on the web? do we really want pop-ups appearing all over the web asking if we want this cookie or that cookie? and how many web users know exactly what cookies do or how they should answer the pop-up questions?

Then there is the question that will be obvious to most web developers if not to European lawmakers, How do you store each particular users answer to the big cookie question on your website? You guessed right you store it on a cookie stored on the users computer. But what if they say no to the cookie question?

Furthermore their is very little information available on the enforcement or indeed the precise requirements of the legislation. The following video produced by Oliver Emberton over at Silktide pretty much sums up the present situation.

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

One thing we do know about the legislation is that fines for non compliance can be up to £500.000. Various options that attempt to meet compliance requirements without totally destroying a users enjoyment of your site are available and we at Pixelbox Design will be happy to assist any of our clients past or present in meeting compliance free of charge.

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However, here are a few facts that you may not know about Facebook from a business marketing angle:

• Over 400 million people have an active Facebook account (active is based on a login at least once a week).
• The average facebook user spends 55 minutes per day viewing the Facebook website.
• Facebook is localised for over 100 different languages (including pirate).
• More than 200 million Facebook users view the Facebook website every day.
• Facebook hosts over 1.6 billion active fan-pages. Over 700,000 are for local businesses and these pages have generated over 5.3 billion “likes”.
• Facebook takes the second largest amount of web traffic in the world (falling just marginally behind Google).
• Facebook users collectively spend an average 8.3 billion hours on the website each month.

These statistics make Facebook one of the world’s most effective marketing mediums for Small to medium businesses to advertise their products and services and also one of the most cost effective.

It is accordingly almost essential for your business to be represented on facebook or risk losing such a huge captive audience to your competitors.

In recognising, this phenomenal marketing opportunity, Pixelbox Design have created a “Facebook package” which gives your business a fully customised Facebook Fan page (or business page), professionally designed to match your corporate identity and effectively market your products and services to this huge audience.

As well as getting your products and services “out there” your new Facebook page will also provide direct links back to your own website from the Facebook website which will dramatically improve your website’s traffic and search engine exposure.

Access this huge marketing opportunity with your own Facebook for only £54.99. Get in touch with us now and your Facebook page can be up and running in 24 hours.

email : hello@pixelboxdesign.co.uk

Telephone : +44 (0)1506 668607.

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Building your site with a commitment to web standards – and continuously testing to ensure it maintains its adherence to those standards – can save your company money and even increase website related income.

What are web standards?

Web standards are, for purposes of this discussion, carefully designed sets of rules and protocols that drive web-based content throughout the Internet.

Specifically, web standards revolve around:

Structural Languages – such as HTML, XHTML, XML, SMIL, SVG, MathML
Presentation Languages – such as CSS, XSL
Document Object Model

These web standards have been defined by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standards bodies to ensure the interoperability and access of documents placed on the web. Documents that follow the established standards will benefit in many ways:

Lower maintenance effort and cost
Lower cost for redesign
Improved usability and accessibility
Broader compatibility across platforms and devices
Reduced hardware demand and cost

Site wide look and feel consistency

Designing to current standards enables the site to maintain the same look and feel theme throughout the site. Standards also allow the site’s look and feel to change rapidly with little additional load on personnel resources.

Improved usability: smaller document size loads faster

Designing to current standards means that – by proxy – the documents will be smaller. Because of this, the pages will load faster for the user. Download times have been shown to be a factor in website usability. A perceived delay in site presentation undermines users’ evaluation of the site. Users systematically rate slower sites as less interesting and having lower quality content. In addition they report that delays interfere with task continuity, their ability to remember the site, and use flow. Exceedingly slow sites can lead users to believe an error has occurred.

Better cross-platform compatibility

As browser manufacturers come closer to adhering to web standards, it is becoming clearer that creating standards-based pages can be an increasing assurance that the site will operate across multiple platforms. “Rendering fine” is a myth born of misunderstanding. Considering that 5 different rendering engines are used to surf the web using dozens of browsers (and versions of those browsers) on 3 platforms, attempting to test the site for rendering in every configuration is next to impossible. Coding to standards then, is the only practical solution for ensuring compatibility – now and in the future.

Prepares for the future

“Rendering fine” on current browsers is no guarantee that a site with invalid markup will render fine in the future. Moreover, it is no guarantee that a site will render fine (or at all) in the growing number of non-traditional devices such as PDAs and cellular telephones. As browser manufacturers make further efforts to make their products adhere to standards, the point of “rendering fine” in target browsers becomes moot, anyway. Standards-compliant markup will be even more of a guarantee that it will work on all platforms than error-laden and proprietary markup.

Extensibility

Designing to the current standard means sites should be marked up using XHTML – an XML-compatible version of HMTL. Using this format will enable the company to venture into the inevitable world of XML without the need for major modifications to the site structure. XML features can be added quickly and painlessly.

Lower maintenance and easier troubleshooting

Personnel can come and go – but the code they create will stay behind. If that code contains error-laden, invalid markup and “work-arounds” for rendering in target browsers, it will cost the company money in personnel time to find the bad markup and make it right. Because standards are very well documented, another person taking over some standard-compliant code can hit the ground running – and will not need to become familiar with the previous developer’s coding practices.

Regardless of who does the site maintenance, designing to standards ensures shorter time spent hunting down problems. While poor rendering may very well be a buggy browser, in most cases “rendering improperly” usually means “something is wrong”. Validation is one of the ways to uncover exactly what the issue is. By maintaining a standards-compliant site, you are providing yourself with insurance that if something goes awry, you will be able to more easily and quickly get to the possible cause. Simply put, if you know everything else is OK, you can focus any troubleshooting efforts on what has been changed instead of looking at what else already existed that could have caused or exacerbated the problem.

Accessibility

Designing with web standards makes accessibility an easier goal to achieve, as standards have been created with accessibility in mind.

Proper markup goes beyond “validity”. Each element in (x)HTML has been created with a specified purpose, and so creating a standards-compliant site also means using the most appropriate element for the task at hand. Doing so increases accessibility. Proper markup gives alternative access devices the ability to provide context to the page’s content.

Reduced bandwidth cost

Last, adhering to standards-based markup can reduce the amount that a company pays for bandwidth. As stated above, adherence to standards has the effect of reducing the size of a document – by up to 50% or more by some estimates. This can lead to big savings in bandwidth charges for high-traffic websites.

Standards just make sense

So what does all of this really mean? As the company’s website becomes more important to its bottom line, standards can help position the company as a leader. Those who choose to make the commitment to quality will find a payoff that begins immediately and lasts into the future. Right now, you’ll save on development of new content. In the future you’ll benefit from reduced maintenance and increased agility. Standards compliance just makes sense.

The post The business case for observing Web Standards Design appeared first on Pixelbox Design's Web Design Blog.

Dubbed Google+, the service is still a bit rough around the edges but it appears to show promise. Sadly, you can experience it firsthand only through invites, so most users will have to wait for the official launch.

The user interface is intuitive and it can import all your information in various Google services with ease. This is good, as it shouldn’t take much time to set up your account and import Picasa photos. Setting up a personal profile is also pretty straightforward, nothing to brag about.

Unlike Facebook, Google+ organizes your contacts into circles and for a start it imports all of your Gmail info. The circles concept is rather interesting, as it is designed to closely mimic real life relationships. For example, it allows you to organize your friends into various groups or circles, i.e. family, work, drinking buddies etc.

One of the issues plaguing Facebook revolves around security and privacy concerns. Google intends to do things a bit differently and provide more privacy options and levels. It could have an edge over Facebook in this department, but then again Facebook could simply improve its own system to cope with the competition from Google.

Google+ is a rather interesting service and with Google behind it probably won’t fail. However, it seems rather unlikely that it will manage to unsettle Facebook as the daddy of social networking anytime soon. Speaking of time, one question comes to mind. What took Google so long?

You can check out a comprehensive preview of Google+ at PCworld.

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The benefits are immediate, having a location to showcase your company and all that it offers, increasing your presence by becoming searchable online, and the ability to sell directly from your website.

Even if your business has a physical location, a website can push customers in your direction. By having a website and listing it with popular search engines, your customers can know where your business is located without having to open a phone book or drive aimlessly. This helps your customers to know where you are, and how to get to you.

A website will allow people to search for your business. If you lack a website, you’re missing out on a huge number of people who are potential customers. After all, most people use search engines in order to meet their needs, be it construction, catering or anything in between. In order to compete with other businesses that have chosen to use the internet as a means to promote themselves, you will need a website.

Another benefit of having a website is the ability to incorporate e-commerce. If you’re selling any productsHealth Fitness Articles, you can set up a website to allow customers to purchase them directly from your site. Virtual shopping carts and payment by credit card or the online payment service of your choice can allow you to sell products or services online and be paid for them automatically.

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1. Simplicity: When planning a mobile website design, the number one tactic is to keep it simple. The smaller screens characteristic of mobile devices means that simplicity is becoming a top priority of web designers everywhere. Mobile websites should favour brief text in a clear font, on a plainly colored background to maintain an easily navigated site on a small screen. That’s not to say that mobile websites should only use black and white, but color schemes should certainly be limited to no more than two or three colors. This is not only a suggestion for mobile website design, but a good rule to follow for any website.
2. Navigation: Methods of navigation are another critical consideration in mobile website design because the majority of smartphones are exclusively touch screen devices. Mobile websites must move away from mouse-based navigation systems to utilise more fingertip-friendly tools such as drop down menus and quick links. Adequate spacing must also be provided between links on a page to ensure that they can easily be individually targeted with fingertips of varying sizes.
3. Minimalism: The minimalist approach to website design is a valuable one for anyone preparing a mobile website. Single-page website layouts are a good way to go because they tend to remove all excessive information and applications, leaving only the information that is completely essential. Minimalist single-page websites enable site visitors to quickly view everything available on the page before they have to click to open links to any more detailed information pages.
4. Testing: Finally, cross browser testing is a process not to forget when carrying out website design for mobile devices. Today, web designers need not only consider compatibility with desktop and lap top computers, but also must ensure that websites display correctly across the full range of smart phones, iPads, BlackBerry’s, tablets and other mobile broadband devices which are constantly changing. For this reason, cross browser testing for functionality across a range of various display options is an essential part of mobile website design.

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More retro more colors

Free to download.

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The Spread Of The Internet

The Internet has instilled itself into many of our lives. It is the world’s largest resource where information is freely passed and distributed between millions of people. Research for individuals and businesses has become a streamlined process thanks to search engines, directories, and reference websites. Because of this interjection into our daily routine, we have come to rely more and more heavily on the Internet for an increasing number of purposes. As such, making your website accessible to as many people as possible is vital to its overall success.

Ensuring Accessibility Is Available

Fortunately, most browsers have the capability to change website settings. A simple click of the mouse and an arrow key can change text size, and software is available that turns ordinary textual content into audio content. But websites need to be optimized so that they are as easily accessible in all of these settings. Generally, this means following good design principles and meeting accessibility guidelines. These are just some of the more common examples:

Text Alternatives

Audio, video, and graphical content is not always accessible for your visitors. This can be true for visitors with disabilities as well as those with limited browser capability. The most common example of this is the image Alt tag. The contents of the Alt tag are displayed in browsers that do not have the capability to display the image.

Accessible Without CSS

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, have become popular because of the ease and flexibility they offer but they may not always be accessible. Ensure that a page renders and loads legibly without the accompanying CSS. Providing good, clean HTML has been used, this should be accomplished.

Keyboard Navigation

It should be possible to navigate around a page using just a keyboard, as well as using a mouse. Ensure that there are no traps on your page where the cursor or screen may become stuck when doing this. Some users prefer the use of the keyboard, while others may not have access to a mouse when viewing your page.

Provide An Alternative Page

There are many reasons why a page, or page element, may be inaccessible to a person, browser, or system. Providing an alternative for every eventuality is not always possible with more complex pages. In these cases, and when all else fails, provide an alternative version of the page that can be accessed by anybody. Typically, this means a text only version, or an HTML only version at the very least.

Web Accessibility For All

Web accessibility is taken seriously. No matter how small a demographic segment you may be missing, you are potentially missing out on visitors if your pages are in any way inaccessible. This will alienate possible visitors and also the people they communicate with on a regular basis.

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