Expert Accessibility Advice for Hammersmith & Fulham Action on Disability

After the launch of their new website, Hammersmith & Fulham Action on Disability (HAFAD) wondered why so few people were visiting the site and browsing the valuable information available. As a leading source of disability information in the borough they needed help fast and contacted iT4Communities to help make their site a success. We asked Mark Gallagher of HAFAD how he got on:

What does HAFAD do?

HAFAD works to promote equality for disabled people mainly in the Hammersmith & Fulham area of London. We aim to provide high quality accessible services so we recently put in a huge effort to create a new website aimed at providing fully accessible information for disabled people.

So what was the problem with the website?

After the launch we saw there weren't as many hits as we'd expected even though the site featured well in search engines. Also, our feedback form wasn't getting us much feedback! We really wanted a web professional with an understanding of accessibility to look at the site and make some expert suggestions for improvement. We wanted to know if the navigation wasn't working well and if the feedback form was broken. We also needed ideas on how to get more people visiting the site.

What were your impressions of the iT4Communities service?

I found out about the service at an AbilityNet conference and since we had no money spare for this project I thought it was the best option. After registering we were contacted to clarify all the details of the project which gave us a greater understanding of exactly what we were looking for. iT4Communities volunteer Shehzad Azram contacted us just three days after the 'Project Definition' was advertised so overall the process was easy and I was really impressed by the speed of the response.

How long did the project take?

Well, Shehzad provided us with some comprehensive feedback within a matter of days. He gave us input on the different aspects of the site and also suggested some useful ways we could market the site.

Were you given any useful advice?

Since Shehzad was a web professional with strong web knowledge, he looked over the site and gave us a detailed insight into navigation, structure and content issues and how to improve these. He made suggestions on making improvements for users and how we can increase our user numbers.

What's the best thing about this project for HAFAD?

The best thing is that Shehzad has given us some excellent feedback and advice about the website that we could not have got elsewhere. He identified a lack of validation on our form, which we can rectify and also provided many useful ideas on marketing the site. We are enormously grateful!

The accessibility website is at http://www.access2info.org.uk

9th June 2008