Mike Gifford set up OpenConcept Consulting in 1999 to work with a coalition of unions, NGO/NPO and political organizations who were raising awareness to the problems with corporate globalization. Since that time we have been working with progressive organizations to set up effective websites using open source software. We now work with a number of local, national and international organizations and have developed a number of Drupal modules which we have contributed to the community.
I was really happy to have Patrick Lajeunesse present about Agriculture Canada’s experience using Drupal as a prototyping tool. As you can see from his presentation, with a small team of communications staff they were able to set up both a Drupal and WordPress prototype to explore their needed functionality. I wanted to focus a [...]
Changing government standards and ‘Common Look and Feel’
Most western governments have in the last decade developed an accessibility strategy for their websites, often based on WCAG 1.0. At the end of 2008, the WC3 announced the final version of WCAG 2.0 and the public sector is now struggling to keep up. In Canada there was a recent announcement about a revised Common Look and Feel (CLF). In the USA the Section 508 is in its first of six revisions, part of which will be to adapt to the new approach to standards. I’m not sure that most citizens will notice the changes to government websites, however for both people with disabilities and the tax payers, it will be a very big deal.