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Mando Group team up with charity, CALM

Today Mando Group teamed up with the charity, CALM to help win the World Record for number of t-shirts to be worn at one time.

Around 3 young men in Britain kill themselves each day. CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) is all about helping these young men to fight against this misery.

The reason behind the challenge is to raise money so they can launch their new, unique webchat and texting support services. The CALM website already offers articles and information to people who need help and there is also a helpline which allows callers to talk to professionals anonymously and in confidence. But they are hoping the launch of these new services will encourage more men out there to seek support when they need it.

CALM are getting businesses like us involved to help with the World Record Challenge. Each company donates £100 and in return get their company logo printed onto one of the world record setting t-shirts. We will also receive a t-shirt to put up in our office.

Over the next few weeks, the piling on of the t-shirts will be captured on film and will be viewable online; the businesses that have already signed up have got their logos showing on the website below:

http://www.thecalmzone.net/500/100/

You don’t have to be a business to sign up so if you fancy entering a t-shirt with your face on it to help this worth while cause, register today.

Accessibility 2.0: a million flowers bloom

Last Friday, 25th April, Adam and I attended the Accessibility 2.0: a million flowers bloom conference in City University, London. The event was organised by AbilityNets Senior Accessibility and Usability Consultant Kath Moonan, and hosted by Robin Christopherson one of their founding members. The event advertised an impressive range of speakers including Jonathon Hassell, Head of Audience Experience and Usability for BBC, Julie Howell who is Director of Accessibility at digital design agency Fortune Cookie, and Antonia Hyde from United Response a company who works with people who have learning disabilities and mental health needs.

I went to the event because the digital industry is moving forward so fast and in my role it's of the upmost important to keep my accessibility knowledge up-to-date, especially with the onset of sites that rely on user generated content such as, FaceBook, YouTube, Flickr etc. So I thought what better way to keep me in the know that to attend a “the first ever conference focusing on web accessibility in a Web 2.0 world”, the day promised to be a very practical day, offering realistic solutions and cutting edge techniques.

Jeremy Keith from Clearleft was first up and spoke about how the key to accessibility was to keep data open, by allowing other users to take your data and do with it what they will, we will have a far more accessible web. The transcript of his keynote is here
After tea and biscuits Steve Faulkner from Paciello Group was up, he took Twitter as his case study examining the problems encountered by using AJAX. Steve’s talk, along with Antonia’s, was more practical than most of the other speakers, and was probably more of what I expected from the event.

Christian Heilmann was next with an entertaining talk on “Fencing in the habitat”, how with the likes of text resize, text only & high contrast options we are placing users with disabilities in their own habitats, rather than encouraging them to learn how to use their browsers in order to tailor content to suit their needs. I was kind of agreeing with everything Chris was saying about text re-size options etc as it was what I was preaching to clients myself as far back as four, five years ago, but then Antonia Hyde from United Response gave her speech on designing for users with learning disabilities.

I found Antonias talk one of the most engaging and was quite disappointed in that she was rushed for time and cut short by the organizers. Designing for users with learning disabilities is not something I’ve really looked into before and I know it’s not something that is taken into account in the W3C WCAG guidelines. Antonia showed videos of users trying to use various sites encountering issues with changing content and content overload, lack of easy options to tailor content such as changing contrast or text size (in contrast to what Christian Heilmann has been saying previously) and lack of good iconage for easy recognition.

Jonathan Hassel talked about user generated content and the issues with making it accessible. He showed a couple of projects that the BBC have developed, BBC Jam have designed an e-learning tool that translates English into British Sign Language (BSL) with the help of some nicely illustrated characters. Then there was also an e-learning tool for blind kids which made clever use of stereo sound to give instant feedback to on screen actions. One fact that did take me by surprise is that “No blind child under the age of 11 years is using any type of e-learning software”.

Next up was Stephen Eisden of Leonard Cheshire Disability talking about "Building a social network for disabled users". Disability Information portal DIP uses WordPress as it’s underlying technology and tries to take into account a range of requirements from a wide variety of disabilities. DIP online is currently in a pilot scheme you can join in here dip-online.org.

Finally Ian Forrester of BBC backstage was on, unfortunately another speaker who was pushed for time and got cut short. Ian talked briefly about the “Tools and Technologies to watch and avoid” mentioning Flash and Adobe Air among other culprits to be aware of. He discussed how we are in the middle of a “User Control Revolution” and that users with disabilities need to be part of the revolution too that means allowing them to contribute rather than just to observe.

The day ended with a discussion panel, which consisted of: Mike Davies of Yahoo! UK, Kath Moonan from AbilityNet, Bim Egan from the RNIB, Jonathan Hassell from the BBC, Antonia Hyde from United Response and Panayiotis Zaphiris from the City University, all moderated by Julie Howell.

The over riding message I took from the day was that we’re in a world that has gone beyond the WCAG guidelines and ticking all the right boxes, we should be making content, and the ability to create content, truly accessible to users. That we are all unique, and have our own requirements it’s not just for those we class has disabled. We need to design for everyone and get everyone involved.

Freelancers Required

We're currently refreshing our freelance network of digital experts. So, if you're a freelance web designer, interactive designer, usability expert, or information architect, and would like to get involved with some very exciting projects, please let us know: jobs@mandogroup.com.

Phil website scores hat-trick

Last night the award winning website developed by Mando Group for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic won yet another award, at the ‘Enjoy England Awards for Excellence 2008’, held at Liverpool’s Saint Georges Hall.

The Philharmonic site has been awarded the Tourism Website of the Year. The website was one of three finalists selected from over 100 previous regional winners.

The site has already won two tourism awards; firstly from The Mersey Partnership and secondly at England’s Northwest Tourism Awards. So to win a third is a fantastic result both for the Philharmonic and for Mando Group.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic required a website with a clear focus on helping users find out what’s on and to book tickets online easily. The website has been developed to deliver a rewarding user experience with interactive features that allow users to watch video footage and listen or download excerpts from particular artists. The site also sells CD's and memberships online and can accept online donations. Mando Group undertook significant user research and worked closely with the Philharmonic to develop a website solution that would meet all these requirements.

A testimonial from the Philharmonic’s Executive Director of Marketing & Communications, Millicent Jones can be viewed in the videos on our homepage.

For more about the Enjoy England Awards

View the site www.liverpoolphil.com

The 50 most powerful blogs on the net

A few weeks ago, the Guardian posted what they believe to be the 50 most powerful blogs on the net. Blogs have risen to the forefront of digital communications over the past few years, and in some cases have overtaken the traditional form of news reporting, to become peoples main source of information on what is happening in the world.

Looking through the top 50 list, it’s no surprise to see that many political blogs are represented. Political blogging is huge, with every man, woman, child and animal seemingly having an opinion on the latest titbit of political scandal. Political parties attentions (especially in the USA) have been drawn to how powerful and important blogs have become in reaching out to voters.

Second to the number of political blogs in the top 50 are celebrity/entertainment blogs. These blogs feed some peoples insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip and scandal, and bloggers such as Perez Hilton (aka Mario Lavandeira) are now more popular and well known than certain movie stars.

Being a geek, I was pleased to see a site I visit daily so high up (TechCrunch).

Stories often appear on blogs before many news corporations pick up on them, often written by people in the front line of the event. During the clashes between Lebanon and Israel in 2006 , citizens aired their views on both sides of the argument, and this is essentially what I love about blogging, the uncensored reality and the ability to read what is really happening. I also love the flip side of blogging, and the randomness that sites such as IcanHasCheezburger provide.

Wall Street Journal Features googleDrive

A little project a couple of us have been working on. googleDrive allows you drive a car around on google maps, anywhere you want! It's our first google maps mashup, and was done as a bit of fun and to see if we could do it.

We have plans for future versions that will allow you to race against the clock on pre-defined circuits round London, Paris, New York, etc. We would like to do a multiuser version so you can see others driving around too, we just have to find some time!

It's even managed to find its way across the pond, and has a little article in the Wall Street Journal. Read Here.

go ahead have a drive! - googleDrive

Happy Easter - Time for a change?

We believe that you should enjoy coming to work – do you enjoy going to work?
We are growing and expanding our team which means there are new opportunities for you to join us.
We are on the look out for talented individuals to add to our team, we are looking for people with a range of skills including, Project Managers, Programmers and Designers.

So, if you want a job where you get to work with great people, shape the future of the company and be part of a creative adventure in 2008 please check out our jobs page.

Mando Group shortlisted for 'Best Digital Agency Award'

We've just been advised that Mando Group have been shortlisted in the 'Best Digital Agency' category for the inaugural How-Do Creative and Media Awards this year.

The competition is high for these new North West media awards, with over 180 entries received in this category.

The winners will be announced at a dinner at Manchester United FC on Thursday 24 April, so we'll let you know how we get on.

‘March Madness’ Creative Workshop

Can you create a structure that will support an egg for a minute using just newspaper and string?

That was the task set for participants of the March Madness Creative Workshop this afternoon. The idea behind the workshop was to promote creative thinking in a safe, non-judgemental environment, to test out our new and developing STAR System game, oh, and to have a bit of fun.

It was great to get a range of people involved not just the usual designers; we had people from IT, Marketing and Sales, although I must say there was a serious lack of developers.

Before the session started I explained how our new STAR System game worked and how we were going to use it in the workshop.

Basically the STAR System game consists of different stimuli to assist in quick and creative brainstorming. STAR stands for Subject Trend Action and Random, the game contains three types of cards, Trend, Action and Random cards and on each card a relevant description. At the beginning of a brainstorming meeting you must define and write down your subject or goal for that session, then select three cards each, two from each category. This instantly gives you a range of eclectic stimuli to start brainstorming with.

Each team received a sketchbook and pens, and took three cards each from the game. They then got as many ideas as possible down on paper in twenty minutes, and then spent a further five minutes developing the one they thought stood the best chance of supporting an egg successfully.

After designs had been tweaked and sketches amended the teams had twenty minutes left to actually build their designs. Each team was given a pile of newspapers, a ball of string and a pair of scissors. Before long the creations were taking shape, and looking rather promising I might add, it was time for each team to choose a spokesperson to present their idea and put it to the test.

With splash mat at the ready and timer set to 00:00 the testing began, fortunately all three designs passed with flying colours and not a drop of yolk was spilt.

What can you do with a newspaper, ball of string and an egg?