Developing an accessible community website

Introduction
Stages
Test and feedback documentation
Contacts


Introduction

Harrow Council secures Adult & Community Learning (ACL) through a range of partners from the statutory and voluntary sectors, with a relatively small amount of direct delivery. There has been no one central point by which potential learners could access information on what is available in the way of courses or learning opportunities.

The remit, as part of a wider Local Government Online (LGOL) initiative, was to develop an online directory for adult learning opportunities in Harrow that would complement providers' existing web-sites or give web presence for those providers without one existing sites and to deliver an online resource for providers and tutors. It was not intended that online booking would be part of the project in the initial stage but that the solution be designed for future functionality.

The guiding principle throughout was that the directory should be fully accessible and user-friendly as a one-stop shop for adult learning in the local area.

Stages

It was agreed that I would be seconded from my role as ACL Programme Development Officer for 2 days a week for 8 months in order to steer the project through. The stages were as follows:

1. To review existing web-sites against a set of criteria - a 'usability and features' check list - This also helped us to draw up a list of potential suppliers.
2. I met with partners (providers of ACL) to gather requirements for a specification for the website and to establish a Steering Group drawn from partners. This group would also look at testing and usability, design and technical issues. Steering group Terms of Reference.
3. I drew up a detailed specification (Word - 264KB) of requirements for the web-site stating general requirements and specifics for the core product, marketing content, support and boilerplate pages and providers pages.
4. An invitation to tender was sent out to 9 potential suppliers, selected from the review of existing web-sites or from recommendation.
5. Tenders were assessed against evaluation criteria to draw up a shortlist and 3 suppliers were interviewed before one was appointed. Our appointed supplier tmg as well as meeting the specification and tender details very well, also demonstrated significant knowledge of 'user interface' and accessibility issues.
6. Following further discussion with tmg on organisational goals and target audience, they drew up user profiles to enable us to pitch look, design and content to the target group(s).
7. Tmg proceeded to produce the site architecture and wireframe using some example content drawn up by the steering group. Wireframe Download (Powerpoint - 703KB). The REACH website was born (Reaching Every Adult and Community in Harrow)
8. Full content was produced to populate the web pages and the wire-frame was tested by a small selected sample of learners and tutors, who were asked to give comments on the course directory and the tutors' area. A number of observations concerning usability were made.

Test and feedback documentation.

Examples were:

• The existing classification of courses by subject content caused problems for some learners. For example, 2 learners looking for an email course looked for it under 'Communications & Personal Development' rather than seeing it as part of 'Computing and Office Skills'. Subjects were subsequently re-classified using a card sorting exercise
• Tutors highlighted that learners with accessibility demands would need to know which venues were compatible with their needs. As a result, it was indicated with an icon which venues were accessible both in terms of physical access but also in terms of adaptive technology .A list of accessibility features was made available to each venue and appears under the venue tab in the course information, as well as within the course search results
• It was felt that learners with motor impairments could have problems with the drop-down menus on the Homepage, as both the menus themselves and the options within them were too close together.  In visual design, more white space around each option was allowed.

6 Following the wireframe testing and consequent changes, a prototype of the web-site was produced. This was tested for accessibility by a member of Middlesex Association for the Blind and a demonstration of the screen readers was given to the company.
7 The web-site was reviewed by the Steering Group for further amendments.
8 Providers were given options for supplying data, including multiple course and online entry forms, in order to make the process easy for small voluntary groups as well as a large college.

Contacts

Karen Bhamra
Programme Development Officer
Harrow Council
mailto:karen.bhamra@harrow.org.uk

Craig McCulloch
Chief Executive Officer
Tmg
mailto:craig@tmg.co.uk

Links

Terms of Reference
Specifications for ACL Website(Microsoft Word-264Kb)
Testing procedure and feedback (text only version)
Testing procedure and feedback(Microsoft PowerPoint-500Kb)