Friendly Web Tools Blog

Small businesses and nonprofits are in the unusual position of being executive staff, mail room clerk and chief technologist all at the same time. Everyone can lick an envelope, but not everyone feels comfortable taking the role of CTO with no tech background. Yet that’s just what happens when you embark on a website project. Here are a few things you can do make sure the development of your website goes smoothly.

1. Decide what you need. This is a good time to start polling the people you work with, because people at your organization may have different ideas about how the site should work than you do. Start with a needs assessment, and put all the feedback and ideas into a big list.
2. Prioritize. The needs assessment will help you compile a wish list of what you want on your website, but now prioritize. If you don’t define scope, your project could go on forever and cost more than you have. Divide your list into three sections: Must Have, Will Need, Nice to Have. Be prepared to take out a clean sheet of paper for any additional items you think of during the project. We advise our clients to set aside an additional 15% of the budget for these unforeseen issues. Anything else you can get to these items during round two. Six months from launch is a good time to think of scheduling this round two.
3. Appoint a traffic cop. During your project development, you need someone to be the central command between your organization and the development team. This traffic cop doesn’t need to know about technology, but they should be organized, good at delivering information and have the ability to call the shots when needed.
4. Create a feedback forum for employees. It’s nice to have a web form or survey somewhere where people can drop comments and ideas during development and beyond. Websites should always be in motion, so use feedback as way to make sure your site does what you want it to as your organization evolves.

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Here on this very last day of 2008, I thought I’d take a look back at the Friendly Web Tools blog entries over the year and share with you those that generated the most responses and feedback. Read, enjoy and happy New Year!

1. Really Deleting What’s on Your Computer
2. Good advice on asking for a new website
3. Careful When Throwing Away Computers
4. Importance of Needs Assessment
5. Killer Church Websites
6. 3 Antidotes to Human Stupidity
7. Best in Social Networks
8. Excellent Tool for Identifying Fonts
9. Gadget Monday: Big Zip-Topped Bag for Cables When Traveling
10. Understanding the Size of Gen Y

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Usability is one of my favorite subjects, because it’s so often ignored yet it’s so utterly necessary to the success of any online project. If someone doesn’t understand how to use your website, what use is it? Your web projects have got to be easy, easy, easy for visitors to use.

You should be thinking about user-friendly design from day one, but you should also be continually refining what you’ve got. There are numerous online tools out there you can use to help you evaluate the usability success of your web projects, but here are five I recommend for learning more about how people use your site. You can also check out previous postings on usability.

1. SUS - A quick and dirty usability scale (Word doc). One of the best ways of finding out how people feel about your web project is to simply ask them. This template from the Usability.gov website is a great place to start when thinking about questions. You can either distribute this document or turn to a tool like SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang to ask for feedback on your site.
2. Color Contrast Analyzer Juicy Studio. Many more people than you probably think have trouble picking up all colors, maybe as many as one in 10. Make sure your design has high contrast colors – no black on blue or yellow on white. Try a tool like Color Contrast Analyzer Color Analysis to choose the right colors for your web site.
3. AnyBrowser.com. We all become used to looking at websites on our own computer screens, but they’re not all set at the same resolution. It’s a good idea to test your site on various browser sizes so you can see how it shows up for others. This site helps you do it easily.
4. BrowserCam. This tool lets you see what your site looks like if you’re viewing it from a Mac, PC, Blackberry or any number of other operating systems or browsers like IE or Firefox. Extremely useful to view your site through this before you launch.
5. StomperNet Scrutinizer. Organizations with big bucks have the money to spend on eye tracking programs, where they actually record where people look on a webpage and are able to figure out what people are seeing or aren’t seeing. StomperScrutinizer is the poor man’s alternative, which is a browser that tracks the mouse and forces the eye to look at the location of the mouse.

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I like to think I'm fluent in English, being born and raised in America and all. But sometimes I feel like I'm learning a new language: technospeak. Every industry is rich with its own jargon, but because so many people use the Internet, the technology industry's jargon frustratingly works its way into common speak (remember when we all laughed about the word "blog"?). You don't need to know what all this terminology means (like undercooked spaghetti not all of it will stick), but here are what I consider the top five most important tech terms that are worth learning.

1. SEO (search engine optimization): “… the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via … search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it 'ranks,' the more searchers will visit that site." From Wikipedia. See blog postings on SEO.
2. Open source: “… a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process.” From the Open Source Initiative. Software code that is created under open source guidelines (such as Drupal – our CMS of choice) is open to anybody to use without licensing restrictions.
3. RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary, depending on who you ask): “… a format used to publish frequently updated works - such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video. An RSS document (which is called a 'feed', 'web feed', or 'channel') includes full or summarized text … [that] benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an 'RSS reader', 'feed reader', or 'aggregator', which can be web-based or desktop-based.” From Wikipedia. Here's the Friendly Web Tools Blog RSS feed and instructions on how to use it.
4. Microblogging: “… the practice of sending brief posts to a personal blog on a Web site, such as Twitter or Jaiku. Microposts can be made public on a Web site and/or distributed to a private group of subscribers. Subscribers can read posts online or request that updates be delivered in real time to their desktop as an instant message or sent to a mobile device as an SMS text message.” From SearchMobileComputing.com. Follow Talance on Twitter.
5. Social network fatigue: “The ennui induced by persistent solicitations to join new social networks. It is especially acute in those who are already members of more MySpaces than they can remember." From Wired.

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I spend so much of my time on social networks that it’s hard for me to remember that not all nonprofits use them. But you should! Social networks, like those below, are an ideal way to create community, distribute information and learn from others. Plus, these are all free services, and free marketing is a nonprofit’s best friend.

So, as part of our end-of-the-year-top-five-blow-out, here are our five favorite social networking sites:

1. Facebook: We love Facebook is the community-based Pages and Groups. But we especially encourage charitable organizations to set up a Facebook Cause. This lets you easily spread the word about important issues and lets you take donations online. (See Talance on Facebook.)
2. MySpace: What we love about MySpace is its size. It’s the third most trafficked sites in the United States according to Alexa, so it’s a great way to make connections and send out buzz. Non-profits can use the blogs to distribute alerts and updates.
3. Twitter: Twitter wins our hearts because it’s so fast. This microblogging site lets people follow updates without the bulk of a blog. Nonprofits are using it in great ways – such as sending out calls for blood donations. (See Talance on Twitter.)
4. Flickr: Sharing photos seems innocuous enough, but there’s power in those images. We’ve seen church groups post compelling images of their missionary work and nonprofits post images of their events, which can create interest in future events.
5. YouTube: If photos are powerful, videos are even more so. We love the way YouTube brings images and sounds to your network. Look the Living Darfur official music video, which has received more than 2 million views. Activist Naomi Klein has created a powerful network for her Shock Doctrine. Movies are powerful things.

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In the giving spirit of the season, our Friendly Web Tools blog is going to close out the year with a wealth of tips for you. From now until 2009 (we’re taking a break on the 25th and 26th), we’re going to give you our top five every day, from design tips to gadgets.

Today, as it’s Gadget Monday, I’m giving you our top five gadgets. As with all gadgets featured on Gadget Monday, these meet our criteria of affordability, ease of use, practicality and ingenuity, all factors we think are vital for charitable organizations.

So, with the end of the year nigh, our top five gadgets:

1. XO. We adore the cheap, durable, energy efficient and inspired green and white laptop computer from the One Laptop Per Child project. We love it because it’s wonderfully designed and it can help change the life of children all around the world. It’s cute, rugged and has built-in wireless. In fact, it’s so great, you might want to buy one for a kid somewhere else who needs one and then buy one for a kid closer to home.

2. E-book reader. It’s a weird experience going from a book to a digital square, but once you cotton on to an e-book reader, you’ll never look back. Even if you don’t want to pay for the expensive books, you’ll still love either the Sony E-Book Reader or Amazon’s Kindle for free and paperless newspapers, magazines and a large backlog of public domain books.

3. Solio Charger. We first saw this when we volunteered at our local public radio station – they were giving it away as a premium for pledging. I’ve loved it ever since. The Solio “stores power from the sun or socket; freeing you to recharge your mobile phone, iPod and other handheld devices anywhere, anytime. A fully charged Solio will recharge the average phone up to two times, or give you up to 15 hours of MP3 music.” Green and great.

4. Zi6. We’ve reviewed the Flip Video digital recorder, but we really like Kodak’s Zi6. It’s a cheap HD (I’ve seen it for barely over $100 online) camcorder for quickly capturing video and letting you upload it to YouTube easily. Fast and fun.

5. Optoma’s Pico Projector. Earlier this year, we featured the 3M pocket projector, a gadget that makes taking PowerPoint or video presentations on the road much easier. We also like Optoma’s Pico, which is bright, incredibly portable and just shy of $400.

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Here’s a secret: I don’t always feel as friendly, knowledgeable and responsive as I sound when it comes to tech support e-mails. I just have a little tool that helps me out: Microsoft Office 2007 Quick Parts.

It’s a small tool that’s part of Outlook 2007 that saves phrases or images that you might frequently include in outgoing e-mail messages. You can select that snippet from your personal library to insert into messages whenever you want.

I use it for signoffs (“If you need to contact me, my info is below”) tech support hints (“If you need a reminder of your password, click the link that says Forgot Your Password”) or any other little things I frequently repeat.

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With some mighty big funders losing money because of the bad economy and the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, this is a good time for nonprofits embrace grassroots fundraising. This, after all, is how the president-to-be was able to raise such an enormous sum: lots of people making moderate donations.

If you’re not raising funds online, do it! Too many websites make it too hard – or impossible - to give online. Here are the top 10 transgressions I’ve seen many times. Learn from these mistakes.

1. No Donate or Give button. Don’t be shy. People want to donate. How will they know to if you don’t ask?
2. Donate/Give button not big enough. Make it easy for them to see a donate button. Big red or orange buttons are good.
3. No way to pay online. Sometimes those big buttons lead to an e-mail or snail mail address. People sit at their computers with a credit card in hand, ready to pay. Our clients use our shopping cart technology to collect donations, sell T-shirts and mugs or accept reservations for events – all classified as fundraising. That’s the best return on your investment, and there are plenty of free services out there too.
4. Clashing systems. Make sure your fundraising efforts dance together, not bump into each other. Coordinate direct mail campaigns with online campaigns, with a goal of moving more online. It’s vastly cheaper.
5. Neglecting other technology. You can ask for support though e-mail, blog, Facebook, and other places in addition to your website.
6. Paranoia. I’m always a little surprised to hear how many people think it’s unsafe to ask for money online. True, nothing is completely safe from fraud, and you shouldn’t be taking credit card numbers through e-mail, but donating through a secure website is much safer than a check in the mail.
7. Asking for support once. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
8. Not rallying the troops. Tell others to tell their friends about how they donated. Give them a button for their website that links back to yours. Have your supporters help by spreading the word.
9. Not tracking. There are great tools out there that you can use that track the number of people who’ve visited your site and what they did when they got there. Make sure you keep records of traffic and compare it month by month to see how your online fundraising campaign is doing.
10. Bad publicity. Asking for money isn’t enough. You need to market your campaign. Aim for media coverage, write about new campaigns in all of your literature and partner with other organizations for added punch.

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You’ve heard me harp on about how religious and secular nonprofits need to get with the program and start using technology to build community. A post I came across on the Jewish Common Sense blog by Rabbi Randall J. Konigsburg proves I’m not the only one talking about it.

Konisburg’s call-to-action pleads, “if we Rabbis can’t change, if the community can’t change, then we will fade into history.” Even if that change is a challenge, it’s necessary. To help soothe the transition from an old-fashioned world to a brave new one, he gives loads of insight for churches and synagogues.

His posting outlines all sorts of friendly upgrades synagogues can make (which can be applied to any church and many nonprofit environments), with special emphasis on technology. A few helpful takeaways, in no particular order, which you can use as a checklist for getting your own technology policy in gear:

• Forget websites that open up to a picture of a building. Home pages should have pictures of people having fun.
• Do congregants share information online through a listserv?
• Is there a social network group so they can see which friends will be attending a program this week?
• How many congregations have free wifi in the lobby or in a meeting room so waiting parents can use their laptops while they wait for children in lessons?
• Websites must be updated weekly and have up to the minute information.
• It should be possible to sign up for a program and even pay for it online.
• You can mail notices to seniors, but young people want their messages by email.
• Adult Education classes should be recorded and placed as podcasts on the website, for those who missed, in a timely fashion. Even better, video the class and post it as a webcast.
• Rabbis, Cantors, and Educators need to use blogs and the web to stay in touch and teach modern Jews.
• Event pictures and video should be posted on the web within days if not hours.
• And why not have a section of the synagogue website for members only?

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Last week I gave a presentation on how to do fast and easy podcasts, and several people were curious about different methods of capturing voice. If you have a computer with a microphone, recording is easy, but it’s a little hard to walk around with even a laptop making recordings.

A digital recorder is the answer. I recommend one that does double duty recording audio and also functions as an MP3 player. That way, you can load up your favorite podcasts, and also create them while you’re out walking.

A few good options:

• Creative Zen does it all, music, photos, video and radio. I picked one up a couple years ago for $30 at Circuit City, and am still using it.
• >Olympus VN-900 Handheld Digital Voice Recorder is more for voice recording, but often sells for less than $30 on Amazon.
• >8 GB MP4/MP3 Player with FM Radio, Camera, Voice Recorder, USB Portable, and 2.8-inch Touchscreen Looks exactly like the iTouch, but sells for around $66 on Amazon.

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[This week, the blog is looking at the way technology is used by President-elect Barack Obama. It's a good learning experience, no matter who you voted for. Check out these other presidential posts.]

One of the things I’m frequently telling our clients to do online is to create a community, and one way to bring people together is through images. I love Flickr for this. It’s a great way to share pictures with people who were at an event, and also help others who didn’t attend experience what it was like. I’ve recommended Flickr groups for public rallies and congregations that are trying to drum up interest in future events.

President-elect Barack Obama’s Flickr account is interesting for showing a behind-the-scenes look at a campaign. I especially like to look at the Election Night slideshow. His campaign photographer David Katz snapped pictures backstage all night of the Obama family waiting for the election results to come in.

It’s remarkable not only because of how amazingly cool and calm everyone looks, but also because it feels so intimate. You feel like you’re there with them, waiting backstage for the big Yes or No moment to arrive.

The next time you have a charity run, fundraiser or other event that you’re hoping to draw interest to, put it up on Flickr.

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Yesterday, I celebrated the White House’s return to technology through Barack Obama’s multitude of gadgets.

Today, I want to talk a little about the role technology is about to take in policy. It matters to charitable organizations, because the new administration’s proposed technology policy recognizes the power of a connected population. It opens up information and allows people to share freely. Obama-Biden’s concerns about technology can be directly applied to a technologically lagging nonprofit world.

Take this phrase from the official Obama campaign website and replace every instance of “America” or “the United States” with the word “nonprofit”:

America risks being left behind in the global economy: Revolutionary advances in information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and other fields are reshaping the global economy. Without renewed efforts, the United States risks losing leadership in science, technology and innovation. As a share of the Gross Domestic Product, American federal investment in the physical sciences and engineering research has dropped by half since 1970.

It’s the same argument I’ve been making for nonprofits embracing technology for ages. It’s the reason behind this blog.

You should read the whole technology plan to understand what’s afoot, but here are a few key items on the agenda to pay special attention to:

• Say, “Hi,” to a new Chief Technology Officer. This isn’t the same Cybersecurity czar that the Bush Administration appointed, whose job was to lock down systems against online attacks. The CTO’s job will be just the opposite: to open the office up, including making sure officials hold open meetings that are webcasted and to introduce blogs, wikis and comments, which let regular Americans like you and me weigh in on issues that matter to us. In fact, Obama said he wants us to be able to comment for five days before legislation is signed.
• The Internet will stay open. A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history … Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment … Such a result would threaten innovation … It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse.
• Open recruitment of regular citizens. Establishing pilot programs to open up government decision-making and involve the public in the work of agencies, not simply by soliciting opinions, but by tapping into the vast and distributed expertise of the American citizenry to help government make more informed decisions. This should sound familiar to all the congregations I’ve advised to make use of lay leadership. They may know more than you do.
• Broadband for everyone. As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband Internet access. This includes refining how we use the wireless spectrum – you’re already experiencing changes here with the move to digital cable. Have you gotten your converter box coupon yet?
• The White House is getting a website again! Lifting the veil from secret deals in Washington with a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials.

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This week kicks off a special presidential edition of Talance’s Friendly Web Tools Blog, celebrating the first time in eight years that the White House has participated in the technological revolution that’s been exploding everywhere else on the planet. We love how the President-elect has used technology to reach so many people, raise so many funds and create a powerful, galvanizing campaign. They’re all techniques that people at nonprofits should be studying and copying whenever possible – no matter who you voted for.

If you love gadgets, you’ll have to love how many Barack Obama has. To wit:

• He’s a BlackBerry addict - did you see him giving speeches with it clipped to his belt?
• He uses a Mac notebook
• Michelle Obama said he wouldn’t leave home without his webcam to stay connected with his family
• He uses a Zune at the gym (or at least did one time)
• He plans to have a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office. This makes him the first president to have Internet access in the famous room. Sadly, however, he may have to give up e-mail, because they can be hacked into and subpoenaed.

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If you’re at a congregation and are having a lazy Friday like I am, take about three minutes and fill out this survey from our good friends at the Center for Congregations in Indiana. They’re doing important research into how congregations are using social media. Can’t wait to see the results, especially since Talance just wrapped up a similar survey among nonprofits in Massachusetts.

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If you have a second, check out Wikipedia, which is trying to earn $6m through donations. They’re asking for it in the best way, which is to put a prominent request at the top of the page, remind people how useful Wikipedia is, and tell donors how much they count on their support. All in just a few words.

A strategy any nonprofit can follow to raise funds.

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Travel was supposed to become a tiny bit less aggravating. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved use of carry-on bag designs that allow pass-through of laptops without removing them for X-ray inspection. Plenty of purveyors capitalized on the opportunity for selling new bags, including Belkin, Mobile Edge and Targus, among many others.

The reality of traveling through security checkpoint is different. You still frequently have to remove your laptop from your bag - along with everything else - to prove you’re not a bomb-toting terrorist. And the most troublesome set-back I’ve experienced is cables.

I travel with a huge rats nest of them: laptop cable, mouse with its cable, iPod cable, cell phone charger cable - those are just a few that I can think of right now. The actual pile that amasses before I leave is much larger.

This mass of unruly cables stuffed into my laptop bag is the real red flag, and the reason I’m asked to step aside and pull everything out of my case. Or, at least it was until I decided to wind all the cords up into one pile, stick them into a big zip-topped bag and carry those separately.

The result: security workers picked up my big zip-topped bag, turned it over and waved me through.

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The world of technology is hard enough to keep up with - never mind all the new vocabulary that continually arises. That’s why we decided to launch an occasional new feature, the Friendly Web Tools Blog Word Watch. We’ll keep our ears open for new words and define them here so you can see what’s new on the scene - and more importantly - what it means.

Today: tweetup, n. A spontaneous meeting among connections who follow each other on the microblogging service Twitter. Friends usually meet, but more often strangers are participating in these ad hoc meetings too.

As in: “Impromptu Tweetup Tonight @ Apple Bar: 17 Waverly Place, NYC 6:30-8pm. Hope you can make it!” (source)

Wondering what Twitter is? Take a look at blog entries I’ve tagged with the word Twitter.

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The sorry truth about your carefully crafted website copy is that people aren’t really reading it. People scan web pages very quickly, and they only pick up bits of information from a few key places, namely top left.

For you, it means you should think like a resume writer when you go to put words on your site:

• Use bullet points. Like the ones here. Isn’t it easier to scan?
• Use bold to set off paragraphs and sentences. Again, it snags your eye as you scan downward.
• Use information-carrying words at the beginning of paragraphs

Overall, emphasize quality over quantity. As beautiful as the writing is, most people simply don’t read it.

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A quick post today that should help you understand why you should care about what Generation Y cares about, in particular when it comes to your website.

First, definitions. Here are the four main generations we’re sharing the US with, as defined by the book Generations by William Strauss and Neil Howe:

• Silent Generation (born between 1925–1942)
• Baby Boomer (born between 1943–1960)
• Generation X (born between 1961–1981)
• Generation Y (born between 1982–2001)

And here’s how they number, in millions:

Do you see that big bar on the right? That’s Generation Y. They’re huge, and they’re addicted to social media. One very persuasive reason you should reconsider your website strategy.

If you’re wondering where you rank in regards to social media compared with others, participate in our survey and you’ll receive a copy of the report when it comes out early next year.

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There are billions of fonts out there, which makes it darned difficult to identify one by sight. That’s doubly difficult if someone presents you with a graphic of a font. You can’t exactly look that one up in the font drop-down menu in Word.

Instead, you plug it into What the Font?! In their words, “Upload a scanned image of the font and instantly find the closest matches in our database.”

And it works amazingly well for identifying a mysterious typeface.

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