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Just read a good article by Tony Bradley called “Is it time for the Web to Abandon Flash.” In it he notes the controversy about Apple not allowing Flash on any of its handheld products, including the soon-to-be-released iPad. Millions of viewers of Steve Jobs’ announcement last week no doubt saw him demo the NY Times website where Flash content was missing and a nasty little icon appeared telling you you need to download a Flash extension for your browser.

I have disliked Flash for a long time, primarily due to its problems with assistive technologies; it often does not play well with screen readers, especially if it has not been developed correctly. In my mind, many Flash developers are graphic artists, illustrators or animators, and don’t really understand web design.

Add to this the fact that more people are now accessing web content via a non-traditional user agent (i.e., not a traditional browser) and you see why I agree with Bradley that Flash may be past its prime.

It’s ironic that Adobe developed Acrobat to find a way to share documents at a time just prior to the “invention” of HTML. Flash, build on the same business principles, was developed for the same reason. And once again, a new standard (HTML 5) may usurp their position. And, I should point out that the new standard will be accessible to screen readers.

But just as those who predicted the demise of Adobe Acrobat 15 years ago were wrong, I suspect it is not quite time for Adobe to throw in the towel and hire the undertaker. Look for Flash to be around for some time to come. But at least for some of us, there will be other options.

This will be interesting to watch.

There was a good article in this week’s Maine Sunday Telegram about a number of interesting – and relatively low cost – assistive technology (AT) for “seniors.” Written by Michelle Maltais of the LA Times, the article notes that “a daylong series of sessions called the Silvers Summit, focusing on new tech products and services for boomers and seniors” will be featured at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Some of the more interested AT devices for Seniors noted in the article were: “Lean and Zoom, computer software that magnifies what’s on the screen when a user naturally leans in to see it. It works with the computer’s video camera to determine the user’s position; the closer a person leans, the more it zooms.”

The article describes how some of the technology originally designed for fighter jets and missiles can now be used in consumer devices to help people with stability and mobility issues.

Good read…anyone going to CES  Las Vegas and can give us reports?

How to choose what’s right for your organization

Web sites come in many shapes and sizes and, given the magic of current technologies, can do many wondrous things. But to many, the inner workings of a website can be confusing. Having the responsibility of developing, or updating the web presence for your organization can be a major challenge. This article is designed to help.

Two Flavors

To begin this discussion, you should know that web sites still come in two major “flavors” – static and dynamic. To the knowledgeable purists reading this, I understand that there are no truly static websites, but please allow me some poetic license here.

The terms static and dynamic have little to do with the actual look of the website and refer more to the “backend” or inner workings of the site and to some extent the functionality of some or all of the features on the site. Either can be right solution for your organization, but how do you choose the right one for your organization? Let’s begin with some information about the flavors.

Static web sites are built using individual web page files written in HyperText Markup Language (HTML), along with some support files for styling (e.g., Cascading Style Sheets – CSS), images (e.g., JPGs, GIFs, etc.) and media elements (e.g., audio, video and Flash objects). Files are usually prepared off-line on a local computer using specialized web-authoring software like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression, and then “published” to a web server connected to the World Wide Web (WWW). Note, there are other programs that purport to be able to create web pages (like MS-Word or MS- Publisher), but be careful. Good web design requires the right tools and techniques. Using the wrong ones can make your site misbehave or worse, not work at all.

The web files are typically “published” to a web server using a piece of software called a File Transfer Protocol or FTP client. The FTP client may be built into your web-authoring program, or it may be a separate program. The “web server” is a special application that runs on a specialized computer (also called a server) that is connected to the Internet. This web server does just what its name implies; it “servers up” your web files when “called for” by someone on the Internet.

Most organizations do not own their own web server and will use a “host” like Maine Hosting Solutions to serve up their website. The cost of this hosting service ranges from a few dollars per month to many thousands of dollars depending on the size of the website and the amount of traffic is receives. There are many options and a web design firm like jebswebs can assist you in this decision.

In a Static web site, when you want to change the content, someone has to change the local file and re-publish it to the web server, thus overwriting the original file. If it is something like a link on a menu bar, this may require that every web file on your site be changed and re-published also. So, this quickly can become time consuming.

With the exception of some simple executable files, most of the content in static websites is fairly flat, meaning it allows little or no interaction with visitors/users. In other words, people viewing the site will typically only be able to read or view the content and not able to write or submit content to the site.

When the World Wide Web was first developed in the early 1990s, designers had very limited choices of things they could do. Designs in those days were almost exclusively static in nature and developers were constantly challenged to make the user experience more interactive and exciting.

Dynamic web site development came out of that need for interaction. These sites often provide the user with the ability to interact with the content and provide some kind of feedback. But the real reason for calling these sites dynamic has to do with how the sites are constructed and maintained. In the dynamic web site, all of the content, styling files and related web documents are contained within one or more databases located somewhere on the Web and “controlled” or administered by an application called a Content Management System (CMS). The content is “hung” on the website using various templates written in a dynamic markup language such as PHP, ASP, Cold Fusion or Java. These templates are similar to HTML, but are more complex and can do a lot more things. Think of your website was a Christmas tree. The template is the tree itself with trunk and branches. It has some color and texture. The content is like decorations and lights that are hung on the tree. Each of your “pages” (also called nodes) uses the same tree, but the decorations and lights vary from page to page, node to node. Some of the “decorations” are built-in to the tree and will appear on every page/node. For example, the heading/logo area, the main menus and the footer of the page. You can also add blocks of content that will appear on every page/node. The choice is up to you.

There are many CMS applications out there  and each works a little differently. The three big ones, Joomla!, Drupal, WordPress, have become the standard in the field. These are all “open source software” meaning that they are developed by volunteer code writers who are always trying to improve the code. They are also free and freely available to be modified and changed to meet your needs.

I should point out that there are commercial CMSs as well and they can cost many thousands of dollars to purchase and license each year.

The CMS is used to create and edit content and runs on the web server itself, requiring almost no additional software. Many of the CMSs have  built in image editors which can do some basic edits like resizing the image, however serious edits are usually done off-line with a local editing application. There are many modules, plug-ins and “widgets” that can be freely added to the dynamic site making the experience for the user very rich.

All CMSs allow for multiple users and the administrator can control how much access each user has to the website.

How to Choose

Generally the first consideration when trying to decide between a static vs. dynamic website is the basic size of the site. This can sometimes be decided by looking at the size of the organization. If the site is for a single person or small organization, you can probably get by just fine with a static site. If there are a large number of people going to be involved with this website, it’s probably best to go for a dynamic design. If you are looking at some kind of an e-commerce website – in other words you are looking to sell things on the Web – you are probably going to need a dynamic web site.

Next in your consideration is how often the content needs to be updated. Static sites by their very definition tend to have information with a relatively long shelf life. That is, if the information that you are putting on a website is relatively stable and will not be changing for months or years, you can get by just fine with a static site. If your content is changing more frequently than once per month, you should consider a dynamic website.

“Who will manage your content?” is your next question. If you have on your staff personnel that know how to design and update web pages, you are all set and can have either a static or dynamic site based upon your organization’s particular needs. However, if you have a small staff, or perhaps are a small nonprofit organization staffed with a handful of volunteers, you are going to need to either hire someone or find a volunteer with extra talents and time.

Finding staff or volunteers that know how to design and maintain a website is not as difficult as it once was, but sometimes keeping that staff is difficult. These people are usually in high demand and may get a better offer from one of your competitors.

Choosing a dynamic web site will be an advantage here in that adding, deleting and editing content is very easy. If you have ever ordered anything on line, written or commented to a blog, or added a comment to an online discussion group, you can easily learn how to work with a dynamic web site.

The last question you need to consider in selecting what type of web site you want is -how interactive do you want your site to be?

One of the big advantages of choosing a dynamic web site design is that they are designed for interaction. In some ways, that’s the goal of the dynamic design; it encourages lots of people to contribute and collaborate. However, you will be comforted in knowing that with a dynamic web design, you still have complete control of who can add, delete or edit content. You can also assign sections of your website to different parts of your organization so that only these groups can see and work with the content in that section. Or, you can open your site up to the whole world for input and discussion like many people do with blog sites. This is all entirely up to you.

Dynamic websites can also import content from multiple sources including automated ones so your website will be constantly updating and changing as these sources update content. And, as noted earlier, dynamic websites can be use to conduct commerce on the Web.

We can help

Whether you are considering your first website or updating one you’ve had for years, it can be very helpful to discuss your needs with a web design firm like jebswebs. We are here to help you with each stage of the design and development experience from concept development to implementation to staff training. Please feel free to contact jebswebs today to request a free initial consultation.

This posting come from the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) website and is published here as a service to the community:

Before Congress adjourned, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the “21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009″ (H.R. 3101). This comprehensive measure would modernize disability accessibility mandates in the Communications Act, bringing existing requirements up to date as TV and phone services connect via the Internet and use new digital and broadband technologies. COAT leaders say the following:

“The time is now to safeguard an accessible communications future,” say Jenifer Simpson of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD). “We commend Rep. Markey for his leadership and look now to the U.S. Senate for a similar leader!”

Karen Peltz Strauss of Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD) says, “H.R. 3101 puts people with disabilities squarely into 21st century broadband communications so we can take full advantage of Internet advancements enjoyed by everyone else.”

“Digital technologies make it possible for TVs and other video devices — of virtually any size — to receive, transmit and display TV programs and video clips with captioning,” says Rosaline Crawford of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD). “Captioning is needed for video material shown on the Internet for the same reason captioning is needed on TV.”

Mark Richert, of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) stated,” We are fed up with playing catch up whenever new technologies are released. People with vision loss will finally have access to everything from text messaging, watching TV and receiving emergency infromation, if this bill is enacted.”

Adds Eric Bridges of the American Council of the Blind: “Video description and accessible user interfaces on TV devices are essential for us. We’ve waited a long time for this.”

As a former university webmaster, I have a certain “positive regard” for those in that position. Back in the good old days, when we were “jacks and janes of all trades,” the most we had to worry about was whether we would get anyone to even visit our school’s website.

Long before the commercial world even had e-mail, college and university websites were out there breaking new ground. It was in these settings that the whole distance learning world began and colleges were the first place where e-mail became ubiquitous.

Things have clearly changed in the past 15 years and institutions of higher ed (IHE) now use their websites to deliver a lot of services to a lot of different people. And the idea of a single webmaster, responsible for all of the content, is long gone.

In the early years, most of the information I had on our site was directed towards potential students and perhaps other “university-types” who were looking for info about our faculty. Now, IHE sites offer ongoing service to alumni, current students, future students, parents, researchers, the media and even the general public. In many instances, the college’s website is a potential student’s or employee’s first interaction with the institution. All the more reason to make it a good one.

At the time I was the webmaster at the University of New England in Maine, I was just beginning to learn about web accessibility. Little did I know it would become my future full time job.

In those days we really only had to worry about “ALT tags” because rich media objects hadn’t been invented yet. Most of the information was simple text and even the number of images were fairly limited. But here too, things have changed dramatically and many IHE sites host a plethora of rich media components,  much of which is not accessible.

So, I was pleased to read about a new initiative by the National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) and WebAIM to develop a process to help IHE’s increase the accessibility of their websites.

The GOALS project (Gaining Online Accessible Learning through Self-Study) centers on the development, evaluation, and dissemination of materials and processes in web accessibility that institutions of education and accrediting bodies can use in their efforts to ensure that online content is accessible to all users.

While the GOALS project is not directed exclusively at IHE (all educational institutions can benefit), my thinking is that these are critical partners in this work. IHE usually have a much larger, more diverse constituency, and often can serve as role models for other educational institutions. And, BTW, “the GOALS project is made possible by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education.”

The project is also smart in that it is focusing its attention on both the educational institutions AND the accrediting agencies as these folks clearly have some “pull” with college administrators. And the focus with the institutions themselves is also directed at those administrators.

So now the work is getting the word out, and that’s what this blog is all about. The GOALS project is looking for individuals and institutions to field-test the materials and processes they are developing. Interested parties should contact Heather Mariger, Project Coordinator.

~jeb