discuss.

Check out the screenshot above. That’s BP’s corporate homepage that is.
BP’s. Corporate. Homepage.

And our popular Young Science Investigator resource is nestling at the bottom of the screen. Hurrah.

I’ve been reading a little about stripped down web browsers that can be used for users with multiple special needs - combining ’symbol’ based browsing, tts (text to speech) and customisable interfaces - the content of which can be administered by an assistant for example. This could help in creating a home/favourites page where a user with cognitive challenges can access their favourite web sites/email programmes.

It’s a realm we’ve not looked into too deeply, but interesting to see the steps that some people need to take to access what we take for granted.

Examples are WWAAC web browser, EdWeb and Widgit.

So, we build websites, right? Well, yes we do, but we have a wider range of skills that could possibly help out on your projects too.

Below is a broad list of skills we have in house, along with the team members who can help you out with them. We’re also creating ‘champions’ for some of these areas, and these people will be tasked with not only keeping up with the latest developments in these areas but shaping their agendas within EdComs.

• Email marketing: Phil
• Web accessibility: Phil (Flash accessibility: Ben)
• Usability: Phil
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): David and Phil
• Design: Helen and Phil
• Flash development: Ben and David
• Server side development (Microsoft): David
• Client side development (HTML and CSS): Phil, Ben and Francesco
• Offline design and print: Phil, Helen and Ben

All of the software and tools mentioned in this document can be downloaded from our website at edcoms-interactive.co.uk/tools/

Useful tools of note are:

Multiple IE

Multiple IE is a collection of previous Internet Explorer browsers – starting at v4 and going up to v6. Testing websites in version 4 is to be avoided as it is so out of date, but checking sites in version 6 is a must as this is still the most widely installed version.

You can download this from: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Web Developers Tool bar

An invaluable Firefox plugin for validating, testing and debugging websites. This plug in allows you to disable browser features, such as JavaScript and CSS for testing.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

Microsoft IE Tool bar

This has many of the features of the Web Developers Tool Bar, but is for IE – further information at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?famil…

Fangs Screen reader

This is another Firefox plug-in that emulates a basic screen reader.

Further information at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fangs/