2008 online - some retrospectives

As the year draws to a close, here's a few retrospectives looking at the highlights of 2008 on the web, as well as looking forward to 2009. Let me know if you've spotted any others worth including here.

Looking back...

The BBC's list of technology we have loved in 2008

From dongles to netbooks and services to applications, the BBC News technology team talk through what they have loved in the world of technology during 2008.

Google Zeitgeist 2008

Studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box gives us a glimpse into the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times. We've compiled some of the highlights from Google searches around the globe and hope you enjoy looking back as much as we do.

The Register's jaw-droppers of 2008

Here is The Register's list of the worst, most cringe-worthy and jaw-dropping moments from the last 12 months that people would probably prefer to forget about. Nine wags of the finger plus - because it wasn't all bad this year - one tip of the hat, for balance.

Web Marketing Association's WebAwards 2008

Now in its 12th year, the WebAwards is the premier annual website award competition that names the best Web sites in 96 industries while setting the standard of excellence for all website development.

Time.com's 50 Best Websites 2008

Some are as useful as a GPS device, others aren't that useful but give you something to do when you had nothing planned for the day. Put them all together and they become TIME.com's 2008 picks for the best the Web has to offer.

Wired.com's 10 Best Galleries of 2008

A year of fast and furious pixel-pushing by the Wired.com photo department has finally come to a close. Now, as we slow down long enough to risk a look back, we've compiled a list of our favorites from the hundreds of galleries we ran in 2008.

and looking forward...

ReadWriteWeb's predictions for 2009

It's time for our annual predictions post, in which the ReadWriteWeb authors look forward to what 2009 might bring in the world of Web technology and new media.

Website Magazine's prediction for 2009

Website Magazine’s predictions for 2009 reveal that in spite of our current economy, the Web as a whole will continue to see strong growth and investment over the next year - a prediction that many industry analysts don't necessarily agree with.

Happy new year to you all!

Slippery deadlines not good for business

I've had cause to think about this subject recently when we had a bit of a palaver over the public deadline for our online school enrolment forms. Released in mid-November, the deadline was set at December 24th. A bit tight, I thought, but it's not my position to question such things. Christmas came and went, and I asked if it was appropriate to now remove the forms, given that the deadline had passed. Oh no, I was told, as by law we must accept applications until 15th March. I was then asked to amend the deadline date accordingly. The December deadline was a fake.

Although I can understand that it is useful to receive submissions as early as possible, to allow staff to manage their workloads, it seems a bit unreasonable to present a false deadline which is then discretely extended. Many people will have put themselves to great inconvenience to complete this form in time, especially given the time of year, and to find that the deadline has been extended by almost three months will no doubt cause annoyance. There is also the risk that citizens will stop taking deadlines seriously, and may miss the window of opportunity in the future, where stated deadlines are genuine.

Far better, perhaps, to give the genuine deadline, but state that early submission is recommended. In some cases (for example, applying for grants from a limited fund) you could even suggest that early submissions will receive preference - that should get people moving!

Consultations

Similar issues have dogged some recent consultations that we've held, with deadlines being pushed back and back to try to squeeze out more responses. The problem here is that those who aimed for the original deadline may not have given themselves sufficient time to compose a full and accurate response. Those who replied early on are likely to be those who feel strongest about the subject of the consultation, and therefore the kind of people you want to listen to carefully and not annoy.

Of course, there are some instances where extending a deadline is sensible. In a consultation where new information has come to light, for example, or where there has been a technical problem preventing people from completing the process. In such cases, the reason for the extension should always be made clear. Otherwise, the organisation risks looking unorganised and unprofessional.

Project deadlines

The same applies to project deadlines. I recently finished a job which had to be completed by a certain date. No problem there - I'm used to tight deadlines. But when the delivery day arrived, the client came back with a few tweaks and some new requests, and it turned out the original deadline wasn't as crucial as first made out. These fake deadlines don't do the developer any favours - many things may get rushed or dropped entirely as a result. Also, it's usually a lot harder to change a final product, rather than factor in any modifications as part of the build process. It's therefore far more productive to set milestones, where you deliver certain things by certain timescales. This allows for a far smoother progression from planning to the final product.

Screen Reader survey

WebAIM are conducting a survey of the preferences of Screen Reader users.

"If you are a full-time, part-time, or even occasional screen reader user, please take a few minutes to complete the survey and provide us with a few details on your screen reader usage and preferences.... The results of the survey will be made public in a few months. We believe the results will be very useful to those who are developing accessible web content."

WebAIM Blog

The results could be very enlightening, and I'd hope that anyone in a position to reply would do so to help inform best practices in designing websites sympathetic to the needs of these users.

I'll be sure to report the release of the results in the new year, so watch this space or head over to WebAIM to get it from the horse's mouth!

Survey Monkey useful features

I've been using Survey Monkey within my organisation for two months now (see my original post about its accessibility, which I'm still looking into). I must say I've been very impressed by the customer service - I've had a few questions which the (generally excellent) help section has been unable to help me with (mainly because contact with a person was necessary), and they've always been quick to respond.

I thought I'd mention a couple of things I've done since taking over the account. The lessons learned apply to any similar function, not just Survey Monkey.

SSL enabled

Firstly, I was surprised to see that the account did not have SSL enabled. This costs just $100 extra a year which, for a organisation such as mine, is peanuts. Compare that with the disasters that could await if not using a secure protocol and it's a no-brainer. Sadly this only really came to my attention when I heard about a survey we'd run to gather parent's opinions on school buildings. A local parent council blog had flagged up the potential security risk, and quite rightly so. We were asking for a few personal details, although to be fair these were not mandatory. Even so, those unaware of the difference between http and https may not have appreciated the risks (however small) and that's not really on. Needless to say we've now upgraded, so people's response are collected securely at their end and the results are downloaded securely at this end.

Friendly URLs

Secondly, a nice "courtesy feature"* is the ability to request friendly URLs. So instead of the usual string of alpha-numeric characters you can get something that actually makes sense (e.g. www.surveymonkey.com/mysurvey). This is really useful, especially if there's a chance that people may need to type in the address, or if you want to refer to it in print. To underline the great customer service, I requested one to be set up and it took just a couple of hours.

Something to be aware of, if also using SSL, is that your users will need to include the https:// at the start of the URL. If they just type in from the www... they'll get directed to the insecure version. Survey Monkey does not offer the ability to always redirect to the secure version, which they say is for the benefit of any systems that can not access the secure pages.

*Presumably a "courtesy feature" is something they'll probably do, but aren't obligated to. Hopefully, then, they'll continue to offer this (and for free).

Loop to start

You've got various options for where to direct the user on completion of the survey (i.e. to a thank you page, another website, or even close the window). Another option, though, is to loop the user back to the start of the survey. This function has proved useful recently when we used Survey Monkey as the basis for an audit. Each auditor would typically be looking at 5 or more things, each requiring a unique response, so once one audit was complete they'd be going straight back into the survey to do another. The 'loop to start' function was, obviously, the perfect solution for this.

Invitations by e-mail

A tremendously useful feature is the ability to set up Survey Monkey to e-mail a list of recipients with an invitation to complete your survey. Each recipient gets a unique URL, enabling the system to track who has and hasn't responded. This then means that you can easily send reminders targeted only at those who are yet to respond.

I thought it worth mentioning this function in the privacy statement that I am developing to accompany any surveys, and accordingly included this on the front page of the survey:

If you arrived at this survey via an e-mail invitation, it will be possible for us to link your answers with your e-mail address. Any information you provide will be kept secure and only used for evaluating the results of the survey.

Government 2.0 - current initiatives wiki

I've just been looking at a wiki of current initiatives for Goverment 2.0 - that is, government's use of social media.

At the moment it has a heavy leaning towards US and Canadian initiatives, although there is a smattering of international efforts too. There are some great examples, including:

• Wikis to improve internal collaboration
• Geo-tagged images on Flickr
• Podcasts to reach new audiences
  
• Lots of use of Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, SecondLife etc etc...

Hopefully this wiki will continue to grow, and the intention is for it to eventually offer best practices. Kudos to Mike Kujawski for creating the wiki, as well as to Jose Alonso (W3C eGovernment Interest Group) for the heads-up.

Staying alert - who's talking about your site?

I've recently started using Google Alerts:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

www.google.com/alerts

I set up a number of alerts based on various topics of interest and the emails started coming thick and fast (I opted for 'as-it-happens' alert frequency in most cases, but you can also specify daily or weekly digests).

What has been most useful is hearing about the various blogs which are talking about the organisation and its website, as well as seeing which sites are linking to us. A large proportion of the alerts come from news sources too, so I can also keep tabs on the media. Not only is this an important Comms issue, but it is also a crucial step in becoming proactive with Web 2.0 technologies in general

Company Buzz is another interesting application, this time for users of Linkedin. Powered by Twitter, this application pulls in links to sites that are talking about your company (for better or for worse!). It also gives you a list of Buzz Words.

With these sorts of tools, as well as through monitoring prominent local and national blogs, I'm hoping to build up a robust 'early-warning system' to help us react to the conversations that are taking place. Once this is well established, I'll be looking to see how we can work it into our strategies for more effectively engaging with web technologies across the board.

After all, if we wish to engage with the conversations taking place, we need to know where they are and what people are saying.

WCAG 2.0 gets the final thumbs up

Some exciting news...

Today W3C announced a new standard that will help Web designers and developers create sites that better meet the needs of users with disabilities and older users. Drawing on extensive experience and community feedback, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 improve upon W3C's groundbreaking initial standard for accessible Web content, apply to more advanced technologies, and are more precisely testable.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

It's taken nearly 8 years, but we finally have a follow-up to the groundbreaking but desperately outdated first version of the international guidelines for creating accessible websites.

I've previously been in contact with the Central Office of Information to find out how quickly they'll be recommending that public sector organisations start adopting the new guidelines. Now that WCAG 2.0 is finalised, we'll hopefully see the Delivering Inclusive Websites document updated by mid-2009, but there's nothing stopping organisations preempting this and indeed I'd hope most will already be doing just that.

We can now look forward to designers across the globe rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck into the new standards, and I'm sure the collaboration that will come from this will make it a smooth transition. A starter for ten can be found in the WCAG 2.0 resources over at the Web Standards Project.

Good luck!

Other excited people

• Jack Pickard (The Pickards) - WCAG 2.0 Breaking News
• Roger Johansson (456 Berea Street ) - WCAG 2.0 finally a W3C Recommendation
• Jared Smith (WebAIM)- WCAG 2.0 Finalized
• Joe Dolson - WCAG 2 Reaches Recommendation Status
• Steve Faulkner (Paciello Group Blog) - Goodbye WCAG 1.0, Hello WCAG 2.0

Local government blogs

When I hear people in my organisation talk about starting an official blog, I am split in two. Half of me is excited by the prospect, whilst the other half cringes at the risks.

Headstar's E-Government Bulletin has an interesting report on the recent E-Democracy 2008 conference, addressing the issue of blogging and digital dialogues. This got me thinking about the subject (you'll see my initial thoughts at the end of that very article), and I've since been looking further into the world of public sector (and more specifically, local government) blogs.

Some examples

Technorati reports that it is tracking the existence of 112 million blogs. Surprisingly, then, it was a little difficult to find really good examples of well-executed local government blogs. Here are some examples, though, listing the good and the bad points of each:

Kent County Council Leader's Blog

Plus points:

• Last post just 9 days old at the time of writing, with 3 or 4 posts a months on average
• The posts seem to relate well to current events
• The post titles are brief but descriptive
• The posts offer relevant hyperlinks
• Commenting not available, but an e-mail link offered
• Some honest and personal views
  

Minus points

• A very obvious political agenda
• The only image is one of the blogger himself
  
• No RSS feed available
  

London Borough of Lambeth Leader's Blog

Plus points

• Well established blog - archive going back to October 2006
• Good range of topic covered
  

Minus points

• Erratic frequency - some months have 5+ posts, other months have none
• The more recent posts appear at the bottom - big mistake!
• Lack of images makes the pages very samey and uninspiring
• No RSS feed available

Wiltshire Extranet Blog

Plus points

• One post each and every week
• All the trappings of a proper blog - archives, calendar, feeds, feedback

Minus points

• Bizarrely, each post is a report of what the blogger will be doing, with no obvious follow-ups
• An internal blog, meant for internal readers, available externally
• No information about the blog or blogger (presumably due to its internal nature)

Durham County Council Leader's blog

Plus points

• Blog is combined with a diary to view upcoming appointments
• Option to add comments, and the blogger has even responded to one
  
• Fairly regular posts (although only been running less than 2 months)
  

Minus point

• The blog launched in October, yet the 'archive' looks like it goes back to January. You can't click on any of the months prior to October, adding to the confusion.
• Again, lack of images makes for dull pages.
• Not only a lack of corporate branding, but also a horrendous pink theme (OK, that one is subjective)
  

Pseudo-blogs

One issue which arose during my search related to the design and functionality of the blogs I encountered. Many blogs seemed to have been integrated into the main corporate website, and in fact in many cases were not technically blogs in the typical sense, but rather normal static web pages presenting chronological articles. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with this, it does rather stretch the blog metaphor. A typical blog has features such as categories and labels for filtering articles; the ability to comment on posts; RSS feeds or subscriptions to easily access new posts; automatically generated archives; and all manner of other widgets including polls, related links and tagclouds. These are important elements which define a blog as a Web 2.0 technology.

Lessons learned

The Durham blog is a great example of understanding the blog metaphor and adapting it to the interests of the users. By incorporating a diary, and then blogging about the events afterwards, you have a great premise for generating interest and engagement.

Lack of images was a big problem across the board, and is in fact an issue common with many blogs worldwide. A local gov organisation should have access to a wealth of stock photos which could be thrown in, where relevant, to liven up the pages. A crucial element of engaging the public is to make your channels of communication interesting, and the use of images seems like an essential ingredient in this.

The regularity of posts seemed to vary wildly, but a key point is the importance of consistency. One post per week is fine if that offers a summary of the week's events. Any less than that and the blog risks looking sparse and unresponsive to events. A greater frequency might be appropriate but it has to be sustainable. Probably far better to stick to the weekly format unless urgent issues arise.

Although many of the features of the traditional blog are perhaps overkill, some key functions should remain. Allowing comments makes perfect sense - after all, the point of the blog is to create a dialogue. Archiving is obviously a must - that's one of the things that makes it a blog. Promotion is a key issue, as the blog must be easy to find. RSS feeds will then make it easy for people to follow.

Conclusion

Blogs provide an excellent channel of communication with your citizens, and can very easily fit in with your other comms strategies. They are incredibly easy to set up, but far from easy to maintain to a high quality. They'll demand lots of time, thought, creativity and buy-in. Because of this, the failure rate is likely to be high, but the rewards are there for the successful few.

British Standard for Web Accessibility - draft

The British Standards Institution (BSI) have released the first draft of the new British Standard for Web Accessibility - BS 8878 - for public consultation until 1st Feb 2009.

BS 8878 will suggest a practical process for ensuring that the private and public sectors successfully produce digital design that is inclusive of as many of the user population as possible. While disabled people are intended to be the key beneficiaries of the new approach, people whose first language is not English and everyone who reads web content over a mobile device stand to benefit from an approach that encourages the development of ‘accessible user experiences’.

BSI - Accessible ICT - It Can Take you anywhere… help us map the journey

Building upon the Publicly Available Specification "Guide to Good Practice in Commissioning Accessible Websites" (PAS78), the new British Standard will address the business case for accessibility, explaining the relevance of the Disability Discrimination Act and looking at how organisations should attain accessibility by allocating appropriate resources and choosing technologies and developers wisely.

It also talks about the user's enjoyment of a website - taking the idea of accessibility to a new level. Julie Howell, chair of the committee which has developed the standard, said:

"Access, use and enjoy are the three terms we use," [...] "Access is about the ability to reach the content; usability is about the ability to complete a task; and enjoyment is about having an enjoyable user experience and wanting to go back to that site. In the past we thought very functionally about what disabled users wanted."

Out-law.com - BSI consults on first British Standard for accessible websites

Out-law.com states that the final version is expected by Summer 2009. Once I've digested the 46-page document I'll post my thoughts here (as well as submitting them to BSI, who emphasise that all comments will contribute to the development of BS 8878, helping to shape the standard).

Wordpress and accessibility

I'll shortly be publishing an article on blogs in the public sector (edit: now available), but for now here's a link to an interesting article on Wordpress and accessibility. As author Mike Cherim points out, one of the sites named in the WCAG 2.0 implementation (and indeed reaching triple-A standard) was based on Wordpress, suggesting that the platform can produce very accessible results. There are a couple of issues to be aware of, though, so if you're developing sites with Wordpress you'd better read this.