New online help for charities launched

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 27 Nov 2002 at 16:03

A Web site for the voluntary sector is claiming to set a new benchmark for accessibility and good design.

The site - askNCVO - provides 'best practice' help and guidance for charities involved with the voluntary sector. Areas covered include how to raise money, manage finance and general legal issues.

Accessibility was a big issue for the site. Given that there are more than 140,000 registered charities, the brief was not to exclude users - whether because of older, low-spec machines or because of accessibility concerns, such as for the partially sighted.

The result, claims the NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations), is a new benchmark for usability.

'A lot of the little gimmicks you find on Web sites do not work well for those with older machines or for those who are partially sighted,' said an NCVO spokesperson. He believed commercial organisations felt that accessibility involved a trade-off against the overall quality of the site. 'The NCVO had to prove them wrong by setting a new benchmark - looking good while being completely accessible'.

As part of the testing process, visually impaired users at the RNIB Bristol UK Online Centre put the site through its paces. It is fully compatible with the screen readers available for the partially sighted.

The site has been financed by the New Opportunities Fund, which is backed by National Lottery money.

It is officially launched this afternoon by Douglas Alexander MP, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office - aka the e-government minister.