blog.

More and more Company web sites are using ME. By that I mean they talk about themselves. A lot. "We have a great range of pipe cleaners". "Our business has been running for 250 years and we are brilliant". "Look at our interesting news all about us".

It's boring. And self-orientated. Even when including keywords and SEO-focused copy, the content itself still needs to be interesting and effective for the reader. Customer-focussed, if you like.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
We are WidgetWeb! We have a huge range of products including waterproof widgets. We offer good prices and are a well-established business of 30 years. Browse our site now!
OR
Got a leaky sink? Need to fix it fast, and at a low price? You'll find a full range of waterproof widgets here. In a hurry? No problem. You'll love our super-speedy order process.

Why has your web visitor come to your site? They have a leaky sink and need to find some waterproof widgets - quickly - and for a good price. They’ve not come to hear about how long you've been running for and a load of flowery 'me me me'.

See how Apple are putting this in place - lots more 'you' than 'we' in this iPad piece.

The copy on your site needs to address your visitor and their needs, quickly and effectively. Keep them focussed and you'll have a better chance of them making a purchase, or making contact, or downloading your latest offers... Talk to your customers, not at them.

And finally... For every instance of we, try to say 'you', at least twice.

If you'd like to chat about your web copy with one of the team here at Focus, drop us a line here.

Change Tracker is a new web tool that we’ve launched this week with South Gloucestershire Council . The Change Tracker tool has been developed to help parents, professionals, children and young people assess how support plans are meeting their needs.  

Change Tracker has been developed as a tool for practitioners to use within their own settings and services in South Gloucestershire. It aims to support planning to improve outcomes for children and young people, and also to measure the progress that each plan achieves. 

It is hoped that children, young people and their families will be involved in using Change Tracker as a means of engaging them in being a part of every support plan, and also to support them in objectively defining their own needs and desired outcomes. The tool has been designed to be used by a range of partners in a variety of settings and this website is just one representation of the information.

The functionality that we’ve developed for this site includes providing users with the ability to ‘browse’ the main question headings or use a ‘search’ function to create an assessment, with the added ability to re-order questions through a simple drag and drop facility. During an assessment if there are any responses given that may cause concern, a non-intrusive message appears with links to additional pages for where to get help. 

The design of the website needed to be a clean, fresh and modern design that reflects professionalism and is also engaging for any young people using the tool. The final design is based around providing positive change and we think the cartoon sunrise captures this perfectly. 

It's been a pleasure to be involved in such a worthwhile and fulfilling project, you can check out the site HERE!

At Focus we always try to adhere to the 'latest accessibility standards', a phrase which is often easy to say but requires some practical investigation when developing new projects. Recently I was required to research the possibility of using javascript on a text only version of a website and the possible problems this might cause. Without the ability to ask screen readers users, a survey of 1245 people at Webaim.org was the next best thing. I was surprised to find that as high as 98% of users had javascript enabled, an increase from 75% - 90% in the 2009 screen reader survey. This gave the indication that javascript would be a viable option.

I started to look into other features that we had implemented to help with accessibility and just to update my knowledge on the biggest problems for users with reduced access. There were several issues that you would expect to see high up the list, such as; missing alt tags, poor keyboard accessibility and inaccessible flash. The most problematic item however was captcha. Captcha is Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, you will often see it when trying to complete forms.

Captcha has the issue of needing to provide security against bots whilst allowing users to still gain access. On some websites I will get the captcha wrong several times so I can imagine a user with poor eyesight would find it impossible. W3 suggests logic puzzles, sound output and non-interactive checks such as heuristic checks (detecting bots using the volume of data the user requests and other background methods) as good possible solutions to solve adding security to websites without reducing access. 

We have been implementing a logic captcha gem which produces questions such as "In the following list how many animals are there: cat, blue, red, lion, yellow?" This gives the user the chance to prove they are not a bot but does not need any extra features for text only or high contrast versions. reCAPTCHA also has improved accessibility from previous versions, adding better keyboard support and sound output. There are several other implementations with positives and negatives as well.

The accessibility and usability of the websites we create will always be a high priority however we can only keep up these standards if our knowledge of what users need is up to date. Our 'next text captcha' is an example of how we try to implement accessibility best practices across our websites. 

Digital strategy is something which every company should be considering, but what is a digital strategy and how do you go about developing one?  

According to Wikipedia a digital strategy is……'the process of specifying an organisation's vision, goals, opportunities and initiatives in order to maximize the business benefits digital investments and efforts provide to the organisation.'

At Focus we have worked on a large number of digital strategies for our clients as well as our own. If we had to explain a digital strategy to a client we would say that it is the initial and ongoing development of processes that will achieve set goals and aims using digital technologies and channels.

We’ve put together our thoughts on the process involved in developing a digital strategy.

The initial thoughts that need to take place when developing a digital strategy is reviewing your current processes and procedures, digital channels currently utilised and results of these activities over a period. Of course you may not currently be undertaking any at the moment. 

Once you looked at how you’ve done things – it’s now time to look ahead. Working out a list of goals that you aim to achieve is key part to the process of developing a digital strategy. This may include some of your current business objectives.

It’s then all about understanding how to achieve these objectives, is it through SEO, social media, development of your website? Once you’ve understood what is it you want to achieve and how you’re going to do it – it’s about the process and procedures to achieve your desired objectives. Another key element to remember is measurement – you’ll want to measure your return on investment.

Once you’ve spent time implementing these ideas into practice you’ll need to continually evaluate the results and ensure you evolve your strategy over time – we here at Focus love the phrase ‘continuous improvement’. It a methodology which is extremely important in the world of digital. 

These are busy times in the Focus studio, so we're after two new people to join the team - an experienced web developer and an account manager! Both roles are full time and based at our Bristol office....

Web Developer

We're looking for a web developer to work in our central Bristol office. Preferably we're after someone with experience of the Ruby on Rails framework but we're also happy to hear from applicants with strong skills in other MVC frameworks and PHP programmers looking to get into Rails and we're happy to provide training.

You'll be working throughout the project lifecycle - meeting clients to confirm requirements, writing specifications, coding (front and back-end), testing and some minimal sys admin work.

Back-end, we're focussed on Ruby on Rails, which we use for all our sites - there will definitely be front-end XHTML / CSS work too. We mainly use Macs for development, but are flexible if you're a Linux or Windows die-hard.

You'd need either some Ruby on Rails or strong skills in another MVC framework. Commercial experience is a plus, but we'd also like to talk to you if you've been doing Rails in your spare time and are looking for your first commercial Rails gig. Your XHTML and CSS is expected to be solid, and you'll hopefully have good Javascript chops too - we use jQuery, so that would be ideal. You should know your way around a database (ideally MySQL), have some experience of version control, and be comfortable working from the command line.

Salary for this role between £25k and £30k dependent on experience.

To apply please send a CV and covering email to:
devjob@thisisfocus.co.uk

If you have a relevant blog, or code samples, they would also support your application.


Account Manager

We're looking to recruit an experienced Account Manager to help provide proactive services to our wide range of clients.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

 - creating effective and innovative solutions and digital strategy for our range of clients.
 - provide a day to day point of contact for multiple accounts, responding to work requests and scheduling work within the studio.
 - developing relationships with key individuals to generate work and revenue.
 - using Google Analytics to track web site goals and objectives.
 - search strategy including optimisation and PPC campaigns.
 - assisting with marketing and new business sales.

A full job specification is available. 

Ideally we're looking for someone with experience in a similar agency environment, with excellent communication and organisation skills and a flexible approach to manage multiple accounts.

For more details or to apply please send a CV and covering email to:
hello@thisisfocus.co.uk

If you have a relevant blog that would also support your application. 

Salary for this role between £25k and £30k dependent on experience.

For both roles - strictly no agencies

We often get asked what language we use to build our sites, and as first point of contact with the client, I chirpily rattle off the reply: 'Ruby on Rails!' It sounds nice, comes with gems and I'm pretty proud of myself (as a non-tecchie) for even knowing that much!

But what does it mean? Why do we use Ruby over any other more widely used programming language? I realised I wasn't entirely sure, so set myself the task of finding out.

Rails is the framework that grew out of the development of the popular project management tool Basecamp 

Open source, it enables people to use it and deploy 'commits' to it (contribute to its growth) and is increasing in popularity all the time. Some sites you may have used that are built in Ruby on Rails (apart from ours!) are:

So why do we use it? One reason, really: It's so much less complicated than some other programming languages.

Ruby on Rails is designed to use less code than other programming methods, meaning less repetition, quicker development times and less margin for error. 

Its two main principles, Convention over Configuration and Don't Repeat Yourself, mean that it's more intuitive for programmers and enables them to programe more quickly and with A LOT less code. In short, we think it's better than anything else out there.

Drop us a line if you would like to know more!

A browser can be like that comfy pair of old slippers, it’s your friend, to take your walks around the internet in. It can be hard to break the habit of those old comfy slippers though, and try a new pair of slippers, even if they may allow you to walk a bit faster and trip you up less. You might not know your way round in them so well at first, they might not be the right fit for what you need or they could be a great improvement; maybe those old slippers are holding you back? With the launch of Internet Explorer 9 last week it’s time for us all to consider if our current browser really is the best fit.

For those less technical savvy amongst you, you may be shocked to know that there is more than one way to view the internet. You may still be using Internet Explorer thinking that that is as good as the internet can get, but let me introduce you to my friends, Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari. These different browsers offer different functionality some are better for macs (Safari) some are faster (Chrome) and some are safer (Firefox). 

Internet Explorer has dominated the browser market for many years; in 2002 95% of web users were browsing through it, now that’s more like 45-50%. This is because the browser market has revolutionised in the last couple of years with the invention of browsers like Chrome and Firefox which offer faster web browsing, better functionality and a more intuitive web browsing experience. Internet Explorer 9 is Microsoft’s latest offering that is trying to win back its market share. It offers integration with Windows 7 to make browsing your favourite sites easier, and gives larger screen space to site contents by reducing the tool bars. 

It’s free to download any of these browsers, so why not find out which is the right fit for you? 

Puzzled Out, a tool for surveying young people about their experiences with mental health services is now up and running.

The site's main aim is to give young people an accessible platform to share their opinions about the services they have received and to feed back on what they would like to see changed. It's a first for us and will hopefully play a pivotal role in the way that mental health services are delivered to young people, by asking them what they need. We worked hard with CERNIS to ensure that these young people were involved at every stage of the design process and to make sure that the site was as easy to use as possible, whether you're 8 or 80!

Part of the challenge involved the building of a bespoke surveying tool, that would not only look attractive to those using it, but also deliver measurable results and reporting that could be segmented and interpreted by CERNIS. It's a fantastic tool that we're really proud of, and it looks pretty good too!
 

If you follow us on Twitter you may have seen our tweet stream go a little crazy last week. I was at Future of Web Apps - a 2 day conference for web developers (that’s me) featuring talks from the people behind some of the biggest companies on the web (Google, Opera, Mozilla, Flickr & TweetMeMe to name a few).

As the title implies, it’s all about web apps - web sites that deliver a product or service online and where the technologies behind them are going.

Here are a few highlights of the day.

The Future of HTML5, SVG and CSS3 (Brad Neuberg)

This talk was all about of future technologies of the web. I’ll try not to go all techie on this one, but basically the core technologies used to build websites are evolving. These progressions are allowing developers to build sites than run faster, look better and are more accessible. More features can be handled be your web browser without having to relay on third-party plugins (like flash). These features can include watching online video, easier to understand web pages for people using assistive technologies and amazing interactive animations in your web pages.

The 37signals way: A look into the design process of 37signals (Ryan Singer)

My favourite talk of the day, Ryan Singer is a product manager at 37 signals (the people behind Basecamp). This talk challenged the traditional wireframe, photoshop, code approach to the design process by almost turning whole thing on it’s head! The key points to take away were to focus on the business logic at the center first and get something running in the browser. Team members spend less time waiting on each other and your end design fits the content (rather than the other way round).

Location, Location, Location (Joe Stump)

There’s no doubt the future of web is mobile. The iPhone started the smart-phone revolution in 2007 and in the next couple of years mobile web browsing is expected to surpass browsing from the desktop. Whereas with the desktop web content was king, with the mobile web context is the new king. This is because the amount of data we’re producing is growing exponentially (side note: Joe claimed that every two days 2.6 million terabytes of data - which is the same amount we produced up until 2003). Without providing context to all the data we’re producing it’s useless.

Future of JavaScript and jQuery (John Resig)

The title is a little cryptic, but this talk introduced a very powerful tool for developing the latest generation of mobile web apps. The jQueryMobile project aims to provide a set of tools for creating great looking user interfaces across a plethora of mobile devices. The idea being developers can spend more time focused on implementing great features and less time debugging different devices. The ‘alpha’ release is due next week with the finished ‘1.0’ release in January.