Issue Archive

Issue 9: January 2005

Illumination and Ideas for Clients, Partners, and Friends of Beaconfire Consulting

In This Issue

1. Editors' Note
2. Client Highlights:

• Easter Seals Wins Large Accessibility Grant
• Parents' Action for Children Site Builds New Movement
• New Consumers Union Site Promotes Communications Choice

3. Spotlight On: Auditing Your Web Site's Creative Experience
4. Events

• Register for the 2005 Nonprofit Technology Conference
• Beaconfire Speaks about Marketing, Audits at Free Dialogues

5. Beaconfire Buzz:

• We're Moving!
• Beaconfire Co-Founder Dottie Hodges Bids Farewell
• Beaconfire CEO Elected to Board of Nonprofit Technology Group
• Job Opening: Creative Director
• Drum Roll Please ... Beaconfire Applauds Newest Staff Member
• Much to Crow About: Beaconfire Staffer is a New Father

1. Editors' Note

In our neck of the woods, the new year has brought us some new sites, a new staff member, a new office, and even a new baby! Read on to learn about all of these developments including Beaconfire's big move to Arlington, Va., on January 31. In addition, we have our final installment in a three-part series on how to approach a Web Audit. Also, learn why you should register for the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference by Feb. 25 to receive the Early Bird discount.

A final word as many in the global community are still reeling from the horrendous destruction from last month's tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Over the years, Beaconfire has been privileged to work with many of the prominent relief organizations that have responded so effectively to this tragedy. By now hopefully you have contributed to one of the worthy relief funds. Beaconfire staffer Usha Venkatachallam, a native of India, also suggests supporting a community-based nonprofit group you may not have heard of previously: The Association for India's Development (AID).

Please let us know how you liked this issue. Email us at: editors@beaconfire.com
-- The Beaconfire Wire Editors

2. Client Highlights

Easter Seals Wins Large Accessibility Grant

Easter Seals has won a large grant in support of its initiative to make Web authoring job positions available to people with disabilities. The U.S. Commerce Department's Technology Opportunities Program (TOP) will contribute $286,360 toward the organization's three-year project to open up positions for people with disabilities.

The project will provide accessible Web authoring by improving the Web administration interfaces provided by Convio, a nonprofit software provider. Andrew Cohen, a Beaconfire project manager, helped Easter Seals write the grant proposal, which was one of only 27 grant proposals selected among the 494 applicants. "This project is much bigger than just Easter Seals," Cohen said. "It will also open doors for people with disabilities to seek jobs at the 200 non-profit organizations that use Convio's software." Easter Seal's TOP grant is described here.

Parents' Action for Children Site Builds New Movement

Parents' Action for Children, a national non profit founded by Rob Reiner, recently launched a redesigned Web site in support of its new name and rededicated mission to build a new movement in support of children's issues. Beaconfire helped Parent's Action select and implement a variety of technologies for content management, email communications, online advocacy, and online product sales of the organization's useful parenting videos. Read the success story here.

New Consumers Union Site Promotes Communications Choice

Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumers Reports, recently launched a groundbreaking new site using an innovative open source content management system. The new site, www.hearusnow.org, offers consumers the latest information, advice, and developments in the media world, from digital TV to Internet privacy to cell phone company mergers -- as well as a means to directly change the marketplace by harnessing the power of consumers. Beaconfire helped Consumers Union plan, conceptualize, and implement the creative and technical aspects of the site and its software. The software underlying the site is TYPO3, a PHP-based open source content management framework. Check out www.hearusnow.org and learn more about how you can become an informed and empowered consumer of communications technology.

3. Spotlight On: Web Audits

Auditing Your Web Site's Creative Experience:
Part 3 of 3

by Dottie Hodges

As we've discussed in our previous issues, smart Web site redesigns begin with a Web audit. In the first article, we explained how to form a cross-departmental Web audit team and identify your goals, objectives, and audiences. In the second article, we focused on how to critique your site's architecture, navigation, and screen allocation.

In this third and final installment, we'll help you audit your site's creative brand and visual experience. It's often difficult for organizations to take this subjective notion and evaluate how their site does or doesn't fit the bill. We outline a few tools to help you evaluate your site objectively.

Identify Your Site with Your Organization

Before your evaluation, take into careful consideration your organization's existing identity pieces -- your logo or brandmark, your tagline, and your color palette -- and determine to what degree the site must adhere to these elements. New organizations or those undergoing a rebranding have it easier. They can create their offline and online brand simultaneously. Other organizations may be challenged by identity pieces that were conceived before the Internet was born.

In either case, your first task is to plan how to display the logo in an online presentation. An organization's site should embody the spirit of the organization's mission; it should incorporate the existing brand without being limited by it. How well does your existing site extend your brand? Is it too restricted, creating a site that falls flat? Or have you departed radically, risking that visitors may not fully grasp the scope of your work and who is behind it? Here are a few ways to check:

• Palette: Does the site use the logo color(s) only, creating a monochromatic site experience, or does it depart from the organization's palette, resulting in a site that doesn't match the tone of the organization's other materials?
• Logo: Is your logo clearly displayed in the most typical place for the user, at or close to the top left of the screen? If not, do you have a strong reason to depart from this norm?
• Is your logo accompanied by a brief tagline or truncated mission statement that explains who you are, what you do, and how this site is different from thousands of others that provide similar information or services?

Evaluate Your Creative Concretely

Once you've evaluated your site's identity, you should critique your site's page design. Here we wish to move past simple aesthetic considerations -- those subjective evaluations that lead to contentious discussions about the intrinsic appeal of purple -- and move to more concrete considerations. How well does your site's design adhere to a legible, logical, usable page design?

Users want pages that are simple, uncluttered, and well-organized. While these attributes will be driven in large part by the amount of content and how that content is organized into sections, the starting point is how the page itself is organized.

For example, one useful exercise is to print a page of your Web site and grab a straight edge or ruler. Draw vertical lines and identify how many vertical "columns" are displayed. Draw lines between major content areas and all other page elements. If you find too many vertical lines, you could have an incongruent design -- one with too many different uniquely shaped content "containers." Or it could be that your content and features are a jumble of differently sized objects that can cause visual confusion.

Observe Standards

As you consider page layout, bear in mind that Web users now come with expectations about your page layout, and deviation from those standards can cause doubt and usability hurdles that distract from your message and credibility.

Think about a book, for example. Unlike the Web, the format of the printed book has been ironed out over several hundred years. It took years for publishers to realize that bound pages were easier to use than scrolls. Page numbers should be near the edge of the page, not hidden near the spine. The table of contents should be in the front. Reference matter should generally be in the back. These standards make books easy to use even while allowing a wide variety of creative freedom for book publishers.

The Web is much newer than books, of course, but readers still have come to expect certain constants as part of their experience. We now know that users expect the logo to be top left, and clickable back to the site's homepage. They will look for the navigation at the left. They will look for the search feature in the top right. It's worthwhile to do a little homework to provide a baseline. It's fine to violate convention, but you'll want to do so with knowledge and justification.

Incorporate Refined Design Elements

Even with a great brand and layout, the individual design elements have to be effective to carry the look of the site. Buttons, type, resolution of images, color -- these are the worker bees of the design itself. The following few checkpoints can go a long way in helping you ascertain how well you have put these principles to work:

• Contrast: Ensure that text on a color background is legible. Dark gray on light gray may be striking for a print publication, but may challenge users, particularly those with vision impairments. For a quick test, try printing the page on a black and white laser printer and then duplicating it on a copy machine several times. If you have trouble seeing the resulting text, the contrast is too low and/or the type is too small.
• Color: After years of valiantly working with a limited palette of only 216 colors, we can now break free of those chains. Lynda Weinman, the first author to identify and publish the "Web safe palette," has pointed out that today less than 6 percent of Internet users' computers are unable to display millions of colors. Still, many mobile devices only display grayscale or limited colors. And computers may be less sophisticated in certain countries or communities. There are still special cases, so know your audience.
• Type: Is your type legible at the default setting? Be sensitive to those users whose vision may not be as sharp as yours. Have you coded your page so that the type can be easily resized? Check this quickly in Internet Explorer 6 for PC by using the menu command: View > Text Size. Does the body copy get larger when you choose the "Largest" option?

Get Started!

As we close this three-part series, there's no time like the present for a Web audit. Gather the team, define the audiences, create your parameters, and prepare to objectively evaluate your site from your users' eyes. Rely on the safety and structure of a formal audit to allow interested and necessary stakeholders within your organization to be involved.

You'll come up with a clear sense of whether your current site makes the mark, and youíll be better equipped to make a compelling case for taking your site to the next level.

To learn more about Web Audits, join us for our upcoming Executive Dialogue, "How to Objectively Evaluate Your Web Site and Plan for Improvement."

For more reading:

• Lynda Weinman's color page
• The W3 Schools browser stats page for trends in browser usage, operating systems and screen resolution

Read the previous articles in this series:

• Part 1 of 3: Audits Manage 'Buzz' for a Web Site Redesign
• Part 2 of 3: Auditing Your Web Site's Navigation and Screen Allocation

4. Events

Register for the 2005 Nonprofit Technology Conference

Join Beaconfire at the 2005 Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC), "Innovation and Vision in Nonprofit Technology: The Next 10 Years," March 23-25, 2005 in Chicago.

NTC is the single largest event focusing on nonprofits' use of technology. The sponsors expect more than 650 people to attend. It's a great opportunity to meet nonprofit peers, build relationships, share resources and ideas, see how nonprofits are putting technology to work for them, and have fun too! Early Bird Special through Feb. 25: $275 for N-TEN members, $375 for non-members. Visit Beaconfire's Events Page for more information and to register.

Beaconfire Speaks about Marketing, Audits at Free Dialogues

Over the last three months Beaconfire has been busy hosting a series of free Executive Dialogues for clients and other interested nonprofits. Participants raved about both presentations, saying they learned more in these sessions than they have in a full conference.

In October, Michael Cervino and Leah King presented "Internet Marketing and Fundraising: What Is Really Working?" Leah and Michael led the group through a variety of examples from nonprofits that are using innovative ways to advocate, fundraise, and market themselves online. Dottie Hodges and Andrew Cohen presented "Web Site Assessments: How to Objectively Evaluate Your Web Site and Plan for Improvement." They provided Beaconfire's framework for usability assessments and reviewed the attending organizations' sites. Attendees walked away with a clearer understanding of core usability concepts and, most importantly, how to tackle a review of their own sites in a logical and productive manner.

At our most recent forum, "A CMS Buyer's Guide: What to Look for in a Content Management System," Jeff Herron provided insight to nonprofit leaders on how to select the best content management system for their organization. Attendees got a sneak peek into Beaconfire's tried-and- true process for analysis, as well as real-world examples of risks involved with such a selection (and how to mitigate them).

There's lots going on in early 2005. Check out our events page for more information about Executive Dialogues and a variety of conferences, by visiting our events page.

5. Beaconfire Buzz

We're Moving!

Time to update your Palm or PocketPC. Beaconfire is moving to the Court House neighborhood of Arlington, Va., on January 31. Over the past year, Beaconfire has outgrown the charming farm house that we have occupied for the past three years in downtown Falls Church, Va.

Our new 6,000-square-foot space will feature a larger conference room, two meeting rooms, a modern space for our Windows and UNIX development servers, and an improved testing lab. Best of all, we'll be right above the Court House Metro station on the Orange line. Our new mailing address is 2300 Clarendon Blvd., Suite 1100, Arlington, VA 22201. Our new phone number will be 703-894-0080. Look for an invitation to our open house next month. Meanwhile, a map is available here.

Beaconfire Co-Founder Dottie Hodges Bids Farewell

Dottie Hodges, one of Beaconfire's four founding partners, has decided to leave Beaconfire to pursue new interests.

"I've been working with nonprofits on Internet projects for 10 years now, and itís been fantastic." Hodges said. "I have the rare opportunity to create an adventure by taking some time to myself and see how I can best bring my talents to the sector."

While Hodges' last official day was in December, she will continue to partner with Beaconfire on key projects over the next few months. "I've made lifetime friends at Beaconfire -- having worked with most of the staff for over five years," Hodges said. "I'm thrilled to continue working with some of my favorite people and clients as an independent consultant."

Beaconfire's CEO Lynn Labieniec said that Dottie would be sorely missed. "While this is sad for Beaconfire, we are extremely excited for Dottie and proud of what she's accomplished for Beaconfire and our partner clients over the years," she said. Three of the company's four founders still remain with Beaconfire, a privately held firm. Please join us in wishing Dottie well in her new adventures!

Beaconfire CEO Elected to Board of Nonprofit Technology Group

Lynn Labieniec, Beaconfire's CEO, has been elected to the Board of Directors of N-TEN, the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. This membership group based in San Francisco plays a major role in linking individuals and organizations working to help nonprofits understand and use technology more effectively. Read more about Lynn's election.