Cutting edge corporate website design and development techniques from Freshleaf Media are solving a major problem for the South East Region of The Chartered Institute of Marketing – how to provide very high levels of accessibility to its website for its members, while protecting the integrity of content and maintaining complete flexibility.
The new website – www.cimsoutheast.org.uk – is designed to be a key resource for The CIM’s Members and Activists, and currently attracts around 500 unique visitors a month. To ensure that the site is equally accessible for the able-bodied and those with, for example, visual impairment, it conforms with the highest Triple-A standard for accessibility, as defined by the Web Accessibility Initiative.
“From a developer's point of view, Triple-A isn't that hard to deliver – the skill lies in delivering it within an attractive, friendly, and content-driven web site!” says Wordsun Web Works Manager Michael Johnson. “It was clear from our initial brief, that this site required content management on a really grand scale - and by individuals who have neither the time nor the skills to handle the technical details.”
To maintain currency and foster ownership, The CIM wanted authorised Activists to be able to update virtually everything on the web site, at will. In order to reconcile this very high level of participation with the need to comply with the Triple-A standard, Wordsun Web Works developed a custom set of easy-to-use formatting tools. By selecting from the tools menu, Activists can make any changes required just as they would in a Word document, without having to understand anything about web site design or markup languages.
In the first three months of use, the Activists in the South East Region have added more than 120 new items to the website, and made around 250 changes The system generates a complete and detailed audit trail of all these changes, and backups are simple to initiate, if required.
“We knew exactly what we wanted for our new web site – and Wordsun Web Works won the competitive bid and then delivered on time, to specification, and within budget”, adds John Cornish, CIM Wessex Branch Secretary. “And it’s clear from the levels of participation that it’s enabling our Activists to communicate directly “on-line” and immediately to our members without having to use webmasters that might otherwise slow down the communication process. These are precsiely the benefits we were seeking for our Activists and Members in the South East.”
To find out more about Freshleaf Media, or for a no obligation discussion of your business requirements, don't hesitate to contact us.
Few content management techniques combine triple-A levels of accessibility with intuitive tools to protect integrity
