Friday, April 24, 2009

The navigational structure, logic and consistency of the site

One of the most important aspects of a website is the navigational structure. It is important to have this set up logically allowing visitors to find the content they want quickly and easily and to ensure they know where they are in the site.

The WWF website navigational structure is well set up. To the left of the site, there is a navigational box that has a lot of information that the user can access. Just by hovering the arrow over the white text, a box appears that gives the user a clear indication of what they will link to. This function is carried on through the whole page, hovering over a picture will also bring up a box indicating what the link is.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

interactive element

Can someone give their opinion on this!!!!

The WWF site has a link so you can calculate your ecological footprint....how the way you live is impacting the planet and what you can do to reduct it.

Is this classified as an "interactive element"

“Tread softly on the crust of the earth – it is thin”
Measure your ecological footprint to see how the way you live impacting the planet and what you can do to reduce it.Go on, calculate your footprint.

NOTE: This is interesting but it took a while to load and then I realised that I had used my entire internet quota for the month. Think it was the cause?

Layout of Site

The WWF site is well set out. They have used colour to lead the audience around the page. The items that they want to draw attention to are highlighted with that browny orange colour. When you enter the site, your attention is drawn to the beautiful sunset image of pelicans and then your eye is lead to the left of the screen with information about “Our Work”, “Act” and “About Us”.

The next section that becomes obvious is the “WWF-Australia News”. At the bottom of this section is the links to “More: Feature articles Latest media releases RSS feeds”.

To the right of this is their “WWF Blog”, giving information from the WWF team and encouraging feedback from their audience.

Directly underneath the header is a contrasting coloured image that is drawing the audience’s attention to what is there main fund raising project, “The Antartica Appeal”.

I guess the negative aspect of this layout is the user has to scroll down to observe the whole site.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

WWF promoting Digg

When you click on the digg button....this information appears

“Clicking a Digg button adds your vote. Register with Digg to promote and share the best content on the web, like from wwf.org.au:”

What is Digg?
Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.
How do we do this? Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images — is submitted by our community (that would be you). Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg what they like best. If your submission rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of our visitors to see.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

RSS feeds for WWF-Australia

What feeds are available?

WWF-Australia currently provides a number of RSS 2.0 feeds throughout the site. Some of the main RSS feeds are listed below:
Latest news
Podcasts- Audio and video segments
Latest feature articles
Latest publications
Up-coming events
Jobs

Then this WWF windows goes on to explain:

What is RSS?
How do I use RSS?
How do I subscribe to your podcast feed?
Do I need an iPod to listen/view podcasts?
Can I use information from WWF-Australia's RSS feeds for other purposes?

I thought this was useful as it explains exactly what RSS is all about and how they can use it.

On the same page there are links to these sites:

Share this page
Email to a friend
Post to del.icio.us
Digg this
Seed Newsvine
What are these links?

McKinsey on 6 Ways to Make Web 2.0 Work for You

1) The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top . Executives need to be role models in both using the technology and exemplifying the soft benefits.

2) The best uses come from users. But they require help to scale. Don't dictate how technologies must be used. Let usage patterns emerge organically.

3) What’s in the workflow is what gets used. Web 2.0 technologies shouldn't sit beside your "normal daily apps", they should be part of the normal daily business process flow (i.e. if you build it they will come does not work)

4) Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs. Not just their wallets. Recognize don't mandate. There's a reason most social web users want to gain friends, followers, connections etc. It's not about "meets expectations". Experts want to be recognized and listened to. You cannot force credibility or trust.

5) The right solution comes from the right participants. It's about the people, stupid! Web 2.0 technology does not a solution create. Tech is a means to an end.

6) Balance the top-down and self-management of risk. Risk is real. Ignoring it is as dangerous as being shackled by it.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

What is Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a catchword for the new internet paradigm that is just starting to shaping the way you work and interact with information on the web.

Web 2.0 is not a specific software or some registered trademark of Microsoft or Google, but a buzzword describing a collection of approaches to using the net in new and very innovative ways.
Web 2.0 refers to technologies that allow data to become independent of the person who produced it or the site it originated on. It deals with how information can be broken up into units that flow freely from one site to another, often in ways the producer did not foresee or intend.
The Web 2.0 paradigm allows net users to pull information from a variety of sites simultaneously and deliver it on their own site to achieve new purposes.

But it is not a world of stealing others’ work or pirating information for one’s own gain. Instead, Web 2.0 is a product of the open-source, sharing notions the internet was founded on, and makes data more connected. This allows new information and business opportunities to be built upon the shoulders of the information that came before.

Web 2.0 lets data act as its own entity, which can be changed, altered or remixed by anyone for any specific purpose. When data is an entity, the net moves from a collection of websites to a true web of sites that can interact and process information collectively.

Web 2.0 is built on technologies like Ajax, a web development approach based on JavaScript and the XML programming language. This mix of technologies allows pages to function more like desktop-based applications rather than as old-fashioned static content pages as we have been used to find on the Web.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

With Ajax-powered sites, users can interact with information inside individual pages as if they were using a software application, leaving the old web metaphor of a sequential navigation path among static web pages.