Joe Dolson: Accessible Web Design

This is just cool:

“Sitelinks” are additional links Google generates from the contents of a site in order to help users navigate your site — - they provide these links in their search results for selected terms. Most sites don’t have site links, so I’m finding it pretty cool to notice them for myself!

If you can’t see the image, the current Sitelinks for this site are:

• Gallery
• Blog Home
• What is Web Accessibility
• SEO and Accessibility
• Articles

On the whole, I’m pretty pleased with the selection chosen here. They’ve pretty well pinned down the key areas of the site: web design, web accessibility, search marketing, and my writing on these topics. Everything is reasonably represented. Perhaps, in my forthcoming site redesign (don’t keep a look out; it’s not going to be that soon,) I’ll make a point to better promote these specific areas of the site.

If we call ourselves professionals, we owe it to our clients, their clients, and ourselves, to do our job properly. A chef must care about health, a builder must care about safety, and we must care about accessibility.

James Edwards, aka ‘Brothercake’ has published a very neat argument on the frequently-asked question “Why Accessibility?”

Read his comments at Why Accessibility? Because it’s our job!.

So, this is an interesting non-profit web tips blog meme which is being started by Elizabeth Able. Her concept is that we should write up one tip — - just one — - on how nonprofit organizations can take best advantage of an online presence.

Just one tip, eh? So it better be a good one.

Make it easy for people to give you money.

There’s nothing like visiting the web site for a nonprofit organization you really care about, wanting to give them some help, and not being able to figure out how. A nonprofit’s website, ultimately, has the same needs as any other online business: to convert visitors into “purchasers,” or, in this case, donors.

It’s not just about making sure your contact information is obvious, or that you have a convenient, highly noticeable “Donate” button plastered all over your site. If you’re a nonprofit accepting donations, you have other important factors to take into consideration.

First of all, be sure to list your legal non-profit status: if you have 501(c)(3) status, you need to say it. If you don’t; you also need to say that. Most donors want to know right away what kind of organization they’re dealing with. (And if they don’t; they should.)

Second, make sure you provide the practical information: will you send a receipt? What name should be written on checks? Can you accept donations via credit card? Over the phone?

Third, and most importantly, be explicit what you will do with the donor’s private information. Your privacy policy is very important to your donors. I want to know whether giving you money will cause me and my descendants to receive junk mail from you and your “charitable partners” for the next 150 years. If there’s an option to contribute without getting on any mailing lists, tell me. If there isn’t, tell me that — - and start planning to create one.

Visitors to your website must have confidence that you are an organization that they can trust. They need to know that you will handle their information in good faith and that you will handle their money effectively to build on your mission.

Check out the Charity Navigator “Donor’s Bill of Rights”. If your web site can’t answer these 10 issues in the affirmative, it’s time to revisit your online presence.

Here are my tags

So, I have to tag three additional people to participate in this meme. So, here goes. First, I’d like to tag Jack Pickard, to get the voice from over the big waters.

Second, I’m going to ping Rhea Drysdale, a person I finally met in person just last week at Pubcon2007. Hope she’ll run with the topic.

Last, I’m going to tag Mike Cherim. Why? Because I always tag Mike - he’s usually got something worth saying. That, or I’m just sadly lacking in creativity.

Well, I’m back in the saddle — - I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but do expect to get a few things posted here in the next few days.

I’ve also got a lot of cleaning up to do. There were major storms here in Saint Paul while I was gone, and I appear to have lost a couple of trees. Just can’t think where they might’ve gone…

So, I’m going to be on vacation for the next couple of weeks. When I return on the 15th, (just to whet your appetite), I’ll have a new PHP script available for download — - a user registration and validation script — - and a long overdue revision to my PHP poll script. As you may have guessed, I’m planning on spending part of my vacation time working on my own little projects…is it work? Is it play? Who can tell?

Anyhow, I’m going to be quiet until the 15th, unless something really amazing happens.

Jakob Nielsen, a well-known international expert on usability, writes articles. You can be pretty confident that he believes he writes articles on the basis of a recent article, “Write Articles, Not Blog Postings.” And he’s right. He doesn’t write blog posts.

However, his stance is that an article is differentiated from a blog post on the basis that blog postings are always “commodity content,” and that “there’s a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else’s work.”

Blog postings will always be commodity content: there’s a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else’s work. Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they’re definitely easy to write. But they don’t build sustainable value. Think of how disappointing it feels when you’re searching for something and get directed to short postings in the middle of a debate that occurred years before, and is thus irrelevant.

Read more: Write Articles, or Write “Blog Posts?”

If you’re not currently aware of the horrible circumstances which have resulted in Kathy Sierra’s withdrawal from the blogging world, you should make a point of researching them. It’s not fun to read about and it’s not nice to know about — - but it’s important. I’m not going to talk about it, myself. The subject has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere in the blogosphere. I’m not even going to link to any of the discussions — - you can find them.

I do, however, want to discuss one of the more significant reactions to this situation. Tim O’Reilly has published a draft code of conduct for bloggers. In some blogging circles, this has been reviled as a bureaucratic reaction to the issue. Fair enough: that’s what it is.

Read more: Pointless Reactivism