11th May 2022
On this year’s Earth Day we talked about how we have decided to invest more of our time in asking those who have the biggest influence and impact to do more for our planet and the life upon it. We do this already in a more organic way but I want it to be more effective, build it into the structure of our day and have a focus.
The two main areas where we have chosen to concentrate our efforts are clean energy (for obvious reasons) and nature because we know by now that when we care for nature, nature cares for us.
The first campaign we are supporting is Nature for Everyone, brought to our attention by Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. #NatureforEveryone is about equal access to green spaces near to people’s homes. There is a huge disparity between who can and cannot easily benefit from the positive impact that natural environments have on our wellbeing and we agree with the Wildlife Trusts and 60+ other organisations that this needs to change. Many studies have shown that living close to nature and even views of nature from a window can support our physical and mental health, it can reduce crime and conflict in neighbourhoods and help children to learn. Everyone should have a legal right to nature and whilst the government are talking about their ‘Levelling Up’ plans and will be implementing new laws this is a great time to tell them that easy access to nature is vital for good quality of life.
So as a start to support this campaign we have:
We will continue to follow and support this campaign as it progresses. Would you consider supporting it too?
Find out more about it at:
The Wildlife Trusts
Wildlife and Countryside Link
1st Nov 2021
COP26 is officially underway. Now is the time that we want to see world leaders make real commitments to reducing carbon emissions. Amongst other means, two proposed measures to achieve this are to accelerate the phase-out of coal and encourage investment in renewables.
There will need to be some bold pledges from those in power, and waiting for them to take action can leave us feeling a little powerless. However, as we know, every change can make a difference.
In our world of web design and website hosting, we know of a few ways that small changes to our online activities can collectively have a big, positive impact.
Here’s what we all can do:
Why should we do these things?
Despite the internet appearing to be an intangible thing, it is very much made up of physical resources and consumes huge amounts of energy, 24 hours a day. Read more about this in our previous articles...
How using Green Hosting can help reduce carbon emissions and exercise consumer influence
Reducing Waste in Our Digital Lives
17th Sep 2021
Those who know us know that we are always looking for ways to make more positive changes to the services we provide and the way we do business. This runs from the suppliers we choose to the way we support our clients.
More recently we have been looking at how we market our services and how we can ensure that we aren't partaking in unethical practices. This is where the Ethical Move Comes in.
The Ethical Move aims to change the way that businesses sell and customers consume, to break the cycle of consumerism. Some businesses use tactics to convice customers to buy things they don't really need and that isn't doing anyone any good, least of all the planet.
So The Ethical Move have created a pledge for businesses to take and we have taken it too. We haven't needed to make any adjustments to our marketing practices as these are things we already do but it is great to have them in writing and to 'wear' our The Ethical Move badge!
1) Charm pricing
We pledge to continue to use round numbers and not 'charm prices'.
2) Countdowns
We pledge to not use countdown timers to drive a sale.
3) False scarcity
We pledge to be honest about availability.
4) Lead magnets
We pledge to be transparent in our email list building.
5) Bait and switch
We pledge to deliver the value we promise pitch-conscious.
6) Woke washing
We pledge to not use social issues to leverage our marketing.
7) Secret recipe
We pledge to not make false promises in our sales and marketing.
Like any development and progression in business we anticipate that there will be more ways that we can improve over time. This pledge isn't the end and it isn't set in stone.
You can find out more about the aims of The Ethical move here and details of the pledge here.
19th Feb 2021
Social media is pretty much a standard part of most businesses’ online marketing by now but users’ experience of it is far from standardised. This could be due to the content itself, how it's posted, or both. For people who have disabilities it may be difficult to access social media in many ways, which at best could be frustrating and at worst be a complete barrier.
With some forward planning and a few adjustments to the way we prepare and post, we could be providing a whole different and much more inclusive experience to many users.
This is a whistle-stop tour to highlight the different aspects of our social media posts we could (should) be making more accessible and inclusive. I'll say right now that we are learning too and will be implementing these things in our posts going forward.
At the end of this article I've added links to some really great guides and deeper information by the experts in this subject. There's a video from AbilityNet, which is very much worth a watch too.
Images are a big deal in our social media, especially in Instagram where it’s all about that engaging picture. For visitors who cannot see images, a useful and concise description is needed in the form of ‘Alt Text’.
Facebook creates automatically generated alt text, which you will need to check and edit, for Instagram and Twitter you can add alt text:
Editing alt text in Facebook
Adding alt text in Twitter
Adding alt text in Instagram
In some instances, alt text may not be sufficient to describe your image, especially if your image includes text (more about that below). In these situations you could add an image description into your post text or link through to the full information on your website.
For podcasts or audio-only content, a transcript should be included. If this isn’t possible within the post itself then you could provide a link to the full transcript wherever it is available online.
Transcripts can also be added to YouTube videos as can closed captions. Google provide useful guides on adding your own closed captions and creating a transcript file for YouTube videos.
Subtitles vs Captions?
Subtitles covey only the dialogue in the video and captions convey all of the essential audio (e.g. sound effects, music etc as well as dialogue). So you need to decide which will be most useful for the video you’re publishing.
AbilityNet have a great guide on this and adding captions to various platforms, which in the video is discussed at 26:50 and is on page 9 of the transcript document.
An audio description is useful for videos where visual content conveys meaning or information. However, you may be able to plan your video in advance so they’re not needed.
The W3C provide clarification on audio descriptions, when to use them and how to add them
Custom fonts
Custom fonts, which aren't included as standard on the social media platform can be difficult to read, due to the letter forms. Additionally, on social media custom fonts are are ignored by text readers and assistive technology. Using the fonts as provided means a better user experience and reduces the risk of your content not being read at all.
Text in images
If possible it's always best to avoid using text in images at all. However, it is a great way to make an impact, especially on Instagram. When using text in images, it is important to use a legible font that won't become illegible when zoomed to a much larger size. Also choose a simple or sans-serif font, where individual characters are easily distinguished. And importantly, ensure that the font colour and background colour contrast well so that the text is clear and strong. WebAim provide a very useful colour contrast checker which helps you easily choose highly contrasting colour combinations.
We can get a little carried away with hashtags sometimes, trying to hit as many key tags as possible. However, we need to take care about how we use them. Camel caps not only make hashtags much more legible but also allows text readers to distinguish individual words within the tag. To demonstrate camel case vs non-camel case, see the following:
#ThisIsCamelCase
#thisisnotcamelcase
Disability Rights Fund also advise putting hashtags in comments, separate from the post text. However others suggest hashtags within the post are OK if used in context within the sentence.
How we love an emoji to bring personality to our posts! However, for some people emojis can make the caption too ‘busy’ and difficult to read. They can also problems for those using text readers if used excessively and in the middle of sentences. This is because the text readers announce the name of the emoji and as you can imagine may make a post seem nonsensical. AbilityNet provide a brilliant example of this in their example video of emojis being read aloud (at 11:33).
This is a huge topic in itself and not as clear cut as making technical adjustments. However, two important things to be aware of are:
Here are some very useful resources which provide much more detail:
WebAim - People with Disabilities on the Web
Ability Net - How to Do Accessible Social Media (webinar and Q&As)
UK Government Communication Service - Planning, creating and publishing accessible social media campaigns
RNIB - Making Your Social Media Accessible
Disability Rights Fund - Creating Accessible Social Media for Those With DeafBlindness
Hootsuite - Inclusive Design for Social Media
W3C - Making Audio and Video Media Accessible
Emojipedia - See all of the different names of emojis
Self-Defined - A dictionary of words which may be not be inclusive
Gov.UK - Inclusive language: words to use and avoid when writing about disability
Stroke Association - Accessible Information Guidelines (Making information accessible for people with aphasia)
30th Oct 2020
Website owners and content creators are becoming more aware of the environmental impact of our digital lives. But what about the social impact? It’s not always about what you’re saying online that has implications, how you say it matters too. The reason for this is because not all web users have the same access to online information and resources. Low connection speeds, limited data allowances and disability can mean that some people are excluded from certain content. It is important to know if your content is helping or hindering.
Slow-loading websites which have not been optimised for efficiency and contain unnecessarily large photos, videos and files can cause problems for website visitors with low connection speeds and limited data. Working through all of those heavy web pages uses up data allowances and some visitors may run out of time or resources before they reach what they really need.
Accessibility and inclusion online are vital for disabled people. Some websites and website content can cause real problems for disabled website users and the assistive technology they might employ whilst online. It is now a legal requirement in the UK for public sector websites to be built and managed in a way that is accessible for disabled users. We have been building websites this way for many years (because why wait for the law to tell you not to discriminate?) and much of what is involved is technical. However, there are ways to manage and publish your website content that makes sure it is accessible to disabled people.
Be mindful of the things we post online. Take some time to learn about what it means to optimise your website and what makes it accessible or inaccessible to disabled people. There may be things that only your web designer can address but there are certainly ways in which you can manage other aspects, especially your content:
These are just a few examples of things all content creators, publishers and managers can do to support digital inclusion. Optimising a photograph may seem like a small thing to do, but like all actions of individuals, collectively they can make a huge difference. The best thing about these changes is that not only do they have social benefits but they have environmental ones too and they improve your SEO! Search engines much prefer quicker, well optimised, well structured websites. It’s a win-win situation all round.
There are wider and more complex details in the design and development of websites but these are for your web designer to address.
Below are some useful resources if you’d like to read up on these topics further:
Making the Web Accessible – The World Wide Web Consortium, Web Accessibility Initiative
ONS – Exploring the UKs digital divide
The Guardian - Digital divide 'isolates and endangers' millions of UK's poorest
GOV.UK - Making online public services accessible
Android Central - How much mobile data does streaming media use?
Wikipedia - List of countries by Internet connection speeds
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