Website changes - The final release

Last December we commissioned Spiral Arm, a Brighton-based software development company, to implement the third stage of our website development.

On September 13th the final release of code changes were made. This final release didn't include any changes to the volunteer functionality so you probably didn't notice any difference - unless you happened to be on the site when it was taken down briefly for the release.

But during the past nine months you should've noticed a new design for the site, improved functionality including additional search options and, of course, the RSS feed. There have also been changes to the functionality available to charities and some important changes to allow us to manage the whole iT4C process much more efficiently.

We hope that you approve of all the changes that we've made. We're certainly happy with them and we're extremely pleased with the help and support we've received from Spiral Arm.

One of the important requirements of the third stage was to make the site easier to use and more accessible. We hope that the functional changes have made it easier to use and that the design changes have improved accessibility. To help with the design Spiral Arm worked with Hobo Internet who first of all carried out a heuristic evaluation of the site. We worked with them to highlight the priority areas in the evaluation document and they came up with some suggestions for the new design. You may be interested in reading their "before and after" report of the site design.

Despite all these changes we've still got a huge wish list of further improvements. We'll be reviewing these shortly and deciding what our priorities are. If you've seen something that you think can be improved please let us know on info@it4communies.org.uk