Venue: 22 July - NCI, IFSC - 10am to 4pm

clickstream will be attending the dot conf which is a new web technology conference for anyone who works, rests or plays with the internet.

It’s a one day event and it’s free. Essentially it’s a teddy bears picnic but with internet folk instead of bears.

There is a great line-up of speakers including:

* Robin Blandford, Decisions for Heroes
* Dermot Daly, Tapadoo
* Mark Little, CEO, Storyful
* Martha Rotter, Microsoft
* Des Traynor, Contrast
* Bernie Goldbach
* Iarhflaith Kelly, Webstrong
* Abi Reynolds, National e-Learning Laboratory
* Adrian Skehill, Calom Technologies

The event is aimed designers, entrepreneurs, freelancers, coders, bloggers, 3rd level students, developers, social media types, IT personnel, educators, marketers, usability engineers, software architects and you.

More information available here!

The web presents a unique way in which to target potential customers directly in a manner that is 100% traceable and measurable.  This half day course will look at strategies you can use to generate more B2B leads – through your own website and marketing but also through social media networks and collaboration across other sites and media.

We will go further and examine how to optimise your online activities in order to convert these leads and visitors into customers.  We show you how to integrate your online and offline marketing campaigns for maximum results.  And we examine collaboration across multiple media including video, webinars and social networks in order to reach your customers.

Programme Outline

• What is a lead? From defining a B2B lead to online lead scoring, have you got it right?
• Evaluate current website and online activities
• Integrate online and offline marketing campaigns
• Content Marketing - how to leverage your existing content to attract visitors to your site and generate leads
• Online Collaboration - Video, Webinars, white papers plus download centres and permission marketing
• Email Marketing - are your emails maximised for lead conversion? A step-by-step guide to increasing your ROI
• Social media, online PR and lead generation - does it work for B2B?

Who Should Attend?

This course is relevant for businesses marketing to businesses (B2B) in Ireland and international markets. Participants will include a mixture of entrepreneurs, marketing, customer service, communications, sales and PR professionals.

For more information and booking form, click here!

Many thanks to Agnes and everyone at Navan Chamber for organising the Speed Networking event held at The Palace, Navan last night!

We had some promising discussions with many of the attendees and look forward to working with some of the them in the near future.

Again, many thanks to everyone at Navan Chamber for putting on the event.

I recently attended Demystifying WCAG 2.0 and Web Accessibility, an excellent event hosted by the Irish Internet Association.  The seminar was about Version 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG2) which was released in December 2008 (almost 10 years after Version 1) by the W3C. Below is a summary of the content covered at the seminar, with links to useful sites mentioned.

WCAG2 Structure Consists of:

• 4 General Principles.
  A WCAG2 website must be:
  • Perceivable
  • Operable
  • Usable
  • Robust
• 12 Guidelines
• 61 Success Criteria

WCAG2 Conformance

• The notion of Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3 is gone - so now there is just A, AA and AAA conformance.
• You must be explicit in how your pages conform. This can be very time-consuming and it must be textual- you can’t just stick the WCAG2 logos on to your website!
• If your site conformed to WCAG1, then it more than likely conforms to WCAG2 (for more information on updating your site from WCAG1 to WCAG2 conformance, visit www.w3.org).
• Test your site on real users - that is the best way to discover accessibility problems.
• Testing your web pages for conformance has become easier than Version 1, e.g.if you are testing for Colour Contrast, WCAG1 - Checkpoint 2.2 states: “Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen”.However, WCAG2 - Guideline 1.4.3 states: “The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1“
  

Tips & Tools for Making Your Website Accessible

• Make sure your documents are well-structured e.g. Heading 1, Heading 2 then Heading 3 etc.
• If you have PDFs for the user to download, it is a good idea to also offer the content in Word (doc) and or HTML format also.
• Webaim.org - plenty of useful resources on Accessibility.
• Webaim.org’s unofficial WCAG2 checklist
• Customising the WCAG2 Quick Reference - this allows you to select/deselect the references to particular parts of WCAG2, so that you only need to view the areas that are relevant to the page you are testing for accessibility.

Making PDFs Accessible

Accessible PDFs have a “tag tree”, that can be edited (using Adobe Acrobat) and contain elements similar to HTML e.g. alternative text on images, that screen readers can read out to users.  Therefore, HTML accessibility is very similar to PDF accessibility.

When creating a Word or HTML document that you intend to convert to an accessible PDF, make use the the inbuilt styles e.g. Heading 1, Heading 2 etc, as these map to the tag tree in an accessible PDF.

Word 2007 has a free plugin that allows you to save a document as a PDF.

It is advised to make your “source document” accessible e.g. your Word document.  Keep a Word version of the final accessible document.

Don’t forget to provide a link to Adobe Reader, so users can download the software needed to view the PDF, if they don’t have it previously installed.

Useful Links

• For more information on Adobe Acrobat and accessibility, see www.adobe.com/accessibility.
• Author IT - a tool for authoring content and publishing to multiple outputs.  It can be used to restrict the user from formatting text that might impinge on outputting accessible PDFs

Legislation

Obligations of Web Designers/Developers under Irish Law

• Disability Act 2005 - Part 5 covers access to public information.  If you are tendering for a public serviced website and web accessibility is not mentioned in the tender doc - point it out!  All government bodies must specify web accessibility in tenders for websites.
• Code of Practice - public websites should conform to WCAG AA standard (note, no version number given)

If you deem a public service website not to be accessible, approach an enquiry officer or the Office of the Ombudsman.

Other Legislation to be Aware of:

UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) & Optional Protocol - www.un.org/disabilities (Ireland have signed the convention, but have not yet ratified it.  The purpose of this convention is “To promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.”  The convention contains an entire article on Accessibility (see Article 9).

CMS Systems and Publishing Accessible Content

Most CMS systems will output accessible content, but it user training is often required to ensure this happens.

If you are sourcing a CMS system, check that the admin area is accessible to your users and future users (many CMS systems use JavaScript).

If you are copying and pasting content from e.g. Word - check if the CMS has an option to clean up the nasty tags that are often embedded in the content from Word.

Some Accessible CMS Systems

• Joomla
  
• Drupal

Other Useful Resources on Accessibility

• WAI-ARIA: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria.php - a toolkit that can be used to describe widgets using rich semantic descriptions.
• Universal Design IT Procurement Toolkit - primarily designed for Irish public service bodies. However it may be of use to anyone who wishes to buy accessible hardware of software.
• myurc.org - The Universal Remote Console Consortium works to promote and implement Universal Remote Console (URC) standards and support services, facilitating user interfaces that are simple and intuitive to use, including future interface technologies such as task-orientation and natural language interaction.

Open Source Screen Readers

• NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA)
• Orca

Some of the Best Irish Accessible Sites

• http://www.citizensinformation.ie
• Department of Social & Family Affairs
• Mayo County Council
• Access Cork.ie

The Speakers at the Event were:

• Joshue O’Connor, Senior Accessibility Consultant with NCBI Centre for Inclusive Technology (CFIT).
• Dónal Rice, Senior ICT Advisor, Centre for Excellence in Universal Design.
• Alexis Donnelly, Lecturer, Computer Science Dept., Trinity College Dublin.
• Charlie Pike, Director, TPG (Europe)
• Rick Love, Web/GIS Team Leader, Mayo County Council.

Just a quick note to say that Mark Sheehan will be speaking on web marketing at the Sales & Marketing Programme which begins 11th May at Navan Enterprise Centre.

For further details on this event, please contact Frank O’Reilly at 087-2384849

The recent FOWA Dublin event, held by the Carsonified team was a fantastic day, with great speakers providing lots of very useful information on web applications and development.

Web App Survival Tips (by Ryan Carson from Carsonified)

The day started with some tips from the man himself based on their experience in building DropSend web application.

• Billing & Invoicing (e.g. don’t bother building your own billing system, save time and use an existing one)
• Marketing - get marketing your product early - create a buzz
• Usability testing - very important!
• Selling your web app

Web Conventions

Eoghan McCabe & Des Traynor from Contrast gave a very engaging presentation on Web Conventions, including looking at page layouts, best practices, building software vs. building websites.

Accessibility

Robin Christopherson from Ability.net (a UK charity) showed us how inaccessible some websites can be and how frustrating this is for users with disabilities.

He estimated that about 10% of the population have some sort of impairment in accessing the web e.g. reading/writing difficulties, age related conditions, blindness, dyslexia etc. so as web designers/developers, we need to bear this in mind when creating web sites/apps.

Robin mentioned Aria (Accessible Rich Internet Application Suite) - which is definitely something worth learning about if you are designing with accessibility in mind.

To see an example of a web site designed in Flash - Robin recommended checking out JK Rowling’s official website.

How to Build Amazing Web Apps - Lessons learned from building Twitter.com

Next up was Blaine Cooke - an ex developer from Twitter.  He forsees richer integration between social networking sites e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr.  Some sites he recommended reviewing include:

• Ravelry.com
• Flickr developer community

The Future is Ruby without Rails by Emma Persky (Trampoline Systems)

This well-received talk was definitely aimed at web developers, but unfortunately, being a mere web designer, I was a bit lost on Ruby and Rails etc. so can’t do Emma’s talk justice here, but the feedback given by web developers in the audience was that she knew her stuff!

€10,000 Prize for Best Business Plan for a Web App

Morgan McKeagney from IQ Content surprised even Carsonified with their announcement of a prize for the best business plan for a web app.  This is your chance to win €10,000 - no strings attached, if you have the winning business plan for a web app.

How to Build Desktop Apps that Help Your Web App Succeed

Matthew Ogle from Last.fm gave a great insight into how Last.fm works, privacy issues relating to desktop applications and also explained how to make money from web apps.  Some sites worth looking at include:

• Tripit.com - Online travel itinerary and planner
  
• Dopplr.com - online service for smarter travel
• Adobe Air - for building rich internet applications
  
• Google Gears - A Firefox and Internet Explorer extension that allows to navigate on compatible websites offline and synchronise when going back online
• Songbird - Open source music player
• Last.fm Boffin - generates tag clouds of your music collection

Web Application Horror Stories

Now this was a scary talk! Simon Willison filled us in on some useful tips and things developers should be aware of e.g.:

• Never allow a user to inject JavaScript into your web pages (JS could even be pulled in via the CSS files eg. (background: url(…js));
• Always set a character set.
• Don’t use crossdomain.xml - see Adobe website for more info
• Clickjacking

Start-ups Pitch their Ideas - in 120 Seconds!

Three people got the chance to pitch their web apps to a panel of judges.  This was a great idea as we got to see how best to present your web app pitch (always state what your web app is about), if you have a website for it - put this up on the screen!

The pitch that stood out for me the most (and I think for the panel too) was - one by Robin Blandford, from ByteSurgery.com, on their Decisions for Hereos application.  This is just such a great idea - rescue teams can file reports via web and mobile and the information gathered can really help in future rescues. Plus there is the added bonus that the stats gathered can be sold to insurance companies.  So this is a real example of a web app with the ability to make money!  Very inspiring.

David Heinemeier Hansson (37 Signals)

Finally, David Heinemeier Hansson from 37 Signals gave a fantastic talk on setting up a web app company.

Round Up

Overall, it was a really great event, well worth checking out if Carsonified come back to Dublin - or if you are able to make it to any of the other FOWA/Carsonified events being held - I highly recommend it.

Aoife from clickstream web design will be heading to FOWA (Future of Web Apps) being held by Carsonified on 6th March 2009. Looking forward to learning lost more at what should be a very interesting event!  Hope to see you there!