They are pretty straightforward guidelines – pointers to how you should look to have your web pages configured to establish maximum effect with your visitors.

They are here…

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.

2. Show that there’s a real organisation behind your site.

3. Highlight the expertise in your organisation and in the content and services you provide.

4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.

5. Make it easy to contact you.

6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).

7. Make your site easy to use…and useful.

8. Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).

9. Use restraint with any promotional content.

10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

We build all of these elements into our practice sites, so that you can see who we are, where we are and how what we do is interlinked with our professional and pro-bono work.

It is useful to see something that we have strived to develop intuitively placed in print – although in the past either at our client’s behest, or by making our own mistakes, as human web developers we have veered from the golden path occasionally.

Still, with the plethora of social networks, platforms and web services on offer – keeping to the core, simple effective truths is no bad thing.

You can see the original research results form the Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility here at… http://credibility.stanford.edu/guidelines/index.html

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Getting credibility on the web

For me the return of Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of them. Dreams of earlier days sitting at my wheezing desktop, landing my plane at a California airstrip, as the hard drive and the machine RAM spluttered like the propellor.

It’s going to return, it’s called Flight and you can see the campaign vision here.

Get your goggles and gloves ready, this time we are in high-def plasma and high speed broadband.

Microsoft, I can hardly wait!

Post from: Thirdsector Tech

Flying back in time

Microsoft say that many bugs have been fixed and the system now works faster than ever. To see the updates in this version you can visit the Small Basic archive here.

What’s it for? One thing is as a great entry level for young people into the world of coding and software creation.

Lynn Langit and Llewellyn Franco have put together a great web site for children and teachers – www.teachingkidsprogramming.org

You can find a great way, as a tutor, into the world of code here and for young people the site offers the tools to get to grips with programming too.

We have written about Small Basic a long time ago, but the latest version and the Langit/Franco concept makes it a great way to get started for young people to create their own programmes.

The Third Sector Web home page is here.

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Small Basic – big concept

This is a rallying cry for the use of existing technology and networks, both technical and community, to be used to get people online.

Depending on the source, it it estimated that there are between six and ten million people in the UK who have never used, or do not have access to, the internet.

The Manifesto has two overarching and simple aims.

1. By the end of this Parliament, everyone of working age should be online.

2. No-one from now on should retire from work without web skills.

Lane Fox argues in the Manifesto that there is, in the current climate, no money available. However, the existing infrastructure in schools, libraries and JobCentres could and should be exploited further.

The Manifesto also argues that informal social networks and support groups have a strong role to play in getting everyone online to exploit the possibilities of e-communication for employment, citizenship, health and leisure.

In summary, the disadvantages of being offline are becoming so great, and growing at such a pace, that for reasons of social justice and economic necessity we must act now…

A loud cheer will go up throughout the Third Sector – and we can only hope that all the good work done in the sector to promote digital inclusion already is built upon.

You can find a copy of the Manifesto for A Networked Nation here.

Third Sector Web home page - find it here.

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Networked Nation Manifesto

See the trains, on their lines, move around the system. Matthew has not created a perfect image of the Transport for London system, but as an example of what can be achieved by a bright coder in a few hours – we think it’s great.

Matthew has used the TfL API to capture train departure data and present the continually updated information on a Google map underlay.

Brilliant! The work was done as part of Science Hackday, over the weekend of the 19th/20th June 2010, courtesy of  The Guardian newspaper.

You can see HackDay details and winners of the coding marathon here.

Check out the live underground map here.

You can find the Third Sector Web home page here.

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Real time underground

The current top five include Alan Turing, Sir Clive Sinclair, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Hedy Lamarr and Ada Lovelace.

This latter entry on the chart might be surprising. How could a person who was introduced to Charles Babbage at a party in the 1830′s be part of a list of IT pioneeers?

Working with Babbage on the creation of the Difference Engine , Lovelace arguably combined her love of mathematics and poetry in helping to create the machine. Lovelace saw that numbers could be transcribed or used to deliver information as image, music or symbol.

The intuitive leap from mechanical to digital, from calculation to computation.

Previously consigned by history to the role of note taker, we now know her contribution to be much more significant. Lovelace arguably played a significant role in developing the philosophy and processes that now underpin your own laptop or iPad.

You can watch Ortis Deley tell her story here. You can also see the other short films and vote for your pioneer too on the Chartered Institute for IT web pages.

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Vote for the Information Pioneers

You can access them thorugh your Windows Live desktop after signing in. The files are stored on your linked SkyDrive account and enable you to recall, share or edit files just as if they were on your laptop or PC.

The suite available offers a reduced set of functions from the full set of facilities available in Office 2010, but still includes enough to make creating documents a useful online experience.

We were pleased to see OneNote included. This is a powerful information management and note taking, action list driven tool and is a useful compliment to the other online services available.

Microsoft with Windows Live accounts, the revamped Hotmail and this new suite now offers a useful and intuitive package.

We think the road-warriors on our team will definitely be using it.

You can find our Third Sector Web home page here.

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Microsoft Web Office – now live

Their findings indicate that all global web traffic will soon exceed half a zettabyte in just four years.

Cisco determine that web traffic will double every two years until 2012. This means that the internet will be 75 times larger in 2012 that it was in 2002.

Cisco also find that web video is an enormous driver for growth in traffic, both now and in the near future. This growth, in the conjoined ‘image and sound’ context of the web will create surprising web usage and reaction.

They don’t know, but it will have massive impact – perhaps more clearly put?

You can read the executive summary of the Cisco findings here.

The numbers related to internet usage and take-up continue to grow. Use the links here to find out what an exabyte or zettabyte is – we didn’t know either.

You can find the Third Sector Web home page here.

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Can you handle a Zettabyte?

If you use a up to date browser with a fast java engine like Opera, Mozilla Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome or Safari 4 you can see Ryan’s browser based fractal generator here.

Falling into a fractal is fascinating – mixing art, science and technology.

Fractal was a term coined in the 1970′s by Benoit Mandelbrot, but an understanding of the recursive process that underlies their generation began with the work of mathematician Gottfried Liebniz in the 17th century.

Mostly we click and search with our browsers, but they will soon be able to do so much more.

You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.

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Experiments in Chrome

Docs now has margin rulers and much easier image placement properties. In spreadsheets you can now drag and drop whole columns of data.

This movie gives you more detail into the new Google Docs functionality.

You can find more details of Google Docs development on the Google Docs blog. You can now collaborate with up to 50 people at once on one document and see the changes in the document in real time.

Google have added the latest java script developments into their product, offering faster and more effective ‘cloud’ documents.

You can find the home page of Third Sector Web here.

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Google Docs extended and improved