Use Google's new Accessible Search

Google Accessible Search searches for pages that are easy to read for the visually handicapped. That is, if your web page is easy for a screen reader to handle, it scores higher in the results.

This is one way to test out accessibility of your web pages for visually impaired people. Test it by doing some searches that you'd hope got your web page in the first page of the rankings. If the rankings are not what you'd like, get to work on SEO (search engine oiptimization) and accessibility.

Site planning saves time

Many church webs sites would benefit greatly from better planning. While in the military, I heard an old maxim ... "One minute of planning saves 12 minutes of execution". In other words, a good plan prevents wasted time later. This certainly pertains to web sites.

When thinking about creating or changing a web site, a good place to start is Gospelcom's " Your first two questions" page. The page even has a Planning Worksheet.

Put in your plan:

• Clear writing (it doesn't come easy)
• Good accessibility (by people with varied disabilities)
• Great usability (for example, make text easy to scan and ensure the site is easy to navigate).

"Who-What-Where-When-Why" is a standard journalism standard for writing a straight news story. Let's apply that standard to web site planning:

• Who do you want to reach with your web site?
  Who will do the needed web page editing and site management?
  Who will provide content?
  Who will approve content prior to publishing it?
• What results do you hope to get from your web site?
  What type of site will it be -- simple online brochure, internal, outreach, ... ?
• Where will you host the site? Costs, services, and support vary widely.
• When does you church want this done? Be realistic about the time involved, both for thesite startup and for updating of content.
• Why have a web? If church members can't answer this with enthusiasm, forget it.

Some related links:

• Planning your web site design (Macromedia -- now Adobe)
• Planning (Web Style Guide)
• Web site planning (TechSoup)
• Site Planning Basics - what you should know before you design a web site

Design pages for speed!

Surfers just hate to wait. As computers get faster and more people have broadband, they expect pages to display in as few as 8 seconds.

Extracts of the book "Speed up your Web site" at WebSite Optimization has good pointers. The author says that people now get frustrated if a web page doesn't load in the first 8 - 10 seconds. The old dial-up days guideline was 30 seconds. That's a huge difference.

Some tips to reduce page display times:

• Use only essential images. Excessive use of images gives a cluttered look anyway.
• Optimize images. Optimizing images can drastically reduce file size (and thuis display time). Some free optimizers are online (some offer free "lite" type versions online) or use your favorite graphics editor (I use Paint Shop Pro -- it costs lots less than PhotoShop).
• "Chunk" information. Use subheads and bullets instead of long narrative text. This can also help search engine optimization (SEO).
• Reduce excess verbiage. I call this "verbal essence".
• Avoid very long pages. Try to reduce text by 50%. Then split up long pages and link to them.

Are youth shunning email?

"Email is the new snail mail..." for today's youth says an article in USA Today. What's causing that?

• Spam is junking up email inboxes. A 2003 Pew study, "Spam: How it is hurting email and degrading life on the Internet " stated that about half of all email was spam. Spam has mushroomed from then. People feel that it's out of control and they don't want to have to deal with it.
• Cell phones let youth communicate faster than typing email messages.
• Instant Messaging (IM) is gaining popularity with the young crowd, which favors immediate gratification in communication.
• Text messaging from cell phones and hand held devices fills a desire for immediate, "anywhere" communication.

Does quick communication have a down-side?

A problem with the faster ways of communicating is the chance of bad assumptions. The list below is in order of increased possible misunderstanding of the message:

• Face-to-face talking, which has the least chance of being misunderstood due to observation of voice tone plus body language.
• Phone calls
• Email
• Instant Messaging (IM)
• Text messaging (or should I say "TXT MSGNG"?) is fast and convenient but conveys the least amount of total information about the message.

Do we even need email anymore?

This is not the death nell for email. Even youth do see a continuing need for email:

• When the message needs to go to many people, not just one.
• For more formal correspondence. Not that long ago, email was looked at as too informal,; now some view it as more formal than their normal communications.
• When the message needs attachments.
• For better documentation.
• When they have more time and an increased desire to write (in sentences) and perhaps late at night when the other person is not available by IM, phone, or text messaging.
• When communicating with adults and people in authority.

How does this apply to churches?

Your church needs to communicate to youth on their level. In communicating with youth, do your leaders:

• Use cell phones?
• Use IM? (Address privacy concerns, identity theft, and attacks)
• Use web-based chat? (Address privacy concerns, identity theft, and attacks)
• Use text messaging? R U OK W/ TXT MSGS?
• Offer (via your web site) blogs or discussion forums where youth can engage each other and the church leadership via the web? (Make sure you address privacy concerns, protect identities, and protect against attacks.)

Grab ideas from blogs

Keep searching for new ideas, new methods of reaching people through your web site. One way to get ideas is to search for and read some blogs that pertain to webs or religion. Blogs and sites I found when scanning the Gospelcom evangelism area after reading their Web Evangelism Bulletin:

• Effective Web Ministry Notes
• Strategic Digital Outreach - the old story from modern wineskins
• Christian Web Trends blog
• Outside the box ministry
• Emerging Evangelism
• UIE Brain Sparks (UIE = User Interface Engineering)
• IEC ENewsletter (IEC = Internet Evangelism Coalition)
• Church Leader Insights newsletter. Archives are online

Also check out the dozens of email newsletters at Christianity Today.

When we stop learning, we are in danger. As Will Rogers said, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just stand there." Are your church leaders doing the same old thing or are they proactive and seeking new ways to educate, empower, and equip the saints to carry out God's work?

Color tools for web work

While trying to decide on color changes for the Congo UMC - Mulungwishi blog, I happened across a simple but fast and effective tool — The Colorizer at WebReference.com.

Color Scheme not only helps you check out a palette, but also lets you check out how it looks to people with color vision problems. Cool. Their old version operates a little differently and can be fun too.

And speaking of fun, try the Colour Sampler. Play around with a palette and then select the "Sample Page" link to see all the combinations of text and backgrounds. ColorCombos' ComboTester is a nice, free online utility. The site also has many sample 3 to 5-color palettes.

For PhotoShop fans favoring free goodies, Visibone has downloadable color swatches.

WebReference also has a couple of pages on color, each with good links within the text.

• Communicate with color
• Emotions of colors

Common design errors

Many people have slid into creating web pages without any training in design. A similar pattern emerged after the advent of laser printers and easy-to-use word processors. All of a sudden, many people were producing newsletters and flyers. But the result was often horrible products that experts dubbed "laser crud".

Likewise, many web page editor programs are easy to use now. But that doesn't mean that the results people churn out are automatically great. Below are some common pitfalls to avoid. In the coming weeks, I'll cover several of these in more depth.

• Poor use of white space
• Poor contrast among headlines of differerent importance
• Poor text-to-background contrast
• Grammar and spelling errors
• Too many typefaces (a.k.a. fonts)
• Image display resizing without image file resizing
• Huge images
• Distracting animation
• Too much bold or italic text
• Too many elements on a page
• Too much colored text

Keep main roads running smoothly

Do you know your web site's main roads? These are the destination pages that are most popular. If you don't have a web site statistics report handy, take an educated guess. Think like a visitor. Think like a non-member visitor.

The navigation path ("click path") to these pages should be very clear and easy to find from anywhere in your site. This is a strong usability factor.

Adding a blog header background image

The FreeWebPageHeaders site only offers many free 800x200 pixel images for use as DIV backgrounds. The site also has a tutorial on how to add such background images to a DIV. The technique uses CSS.

Open source web page designs

The folks at Open Source Web Design offer free Web page designs. A spot-check shows that OSWD uses modern CSS coding, not layout tables.

You could use these as the basic for regular or blog-type web pages. So download, tweak, and enjoy.

Another source is the free CSS/HTML templates at Mollio. The six basic designs cover most of the common column types and all use CSS, not layout tables. Mollio offers these under three different licenses: Creative Commons, GPL and CPL.

Translate your web

Do you have congregation members or anyone in your Web site's "target audience" that prefer a language other than English? If so, offer them a way to translate your web page.

Google offers a Language Tools page that "translates" from one language to another. Just type in the web address of the page you want translated, and ... presto. Test it out by translating the Avondale Pattillo UMC home page from English to Spanish.

Outreach tips

The Church Outreach Lab has some interesting comments and useful web page content tips. It also accepts tips and comments from varied churches. Here are a few:

• Keep it very simple. Our brains break complex information into small bits before moving them to long-term memory. So make your communications literally more memorable — simply "keep it simple".
• Most church newsletters are horrendous. For more tips about newsletters , see Avondale Pattillo UMC's special training section. Does your church newsletter look "old school" and out of touch with the modern world?
• Make Sunday worship bulletins seeker-simple. If you truly believe in outreach, make your worship bulletin simple for a seeker to understand. For example, get rid of ancient terms such as Introit, Gloria Patri, Postlude, and the like.
• Hold special events that emphasize your "brand" -- what your church is really all about.
• Communicate by email and the web plus traditional means. Hold some "meetings" or pre-meeting discussions by email. Keep the membership up on late-breaking news by email. Let members receive publications via email. Have a web presence that's more than an online brochure.

Get free Sunday bulletin shells

To get you to try their Sunday worship bulletin shells , Outreach offers you a free week's worth of 1 of 10 designs.

These designs look good enough to use for church pamphlets or special events too.

Review: Picasa Web Albums

Google's free photo organizing and editing tool Picasa, also integrates well with Picasa Web Albums. Both Google (Picasa) and Flickr offer free and subscription photo storage. Here's my fast take on the two:

Picasa Web Albums vs. Flickr (free version)

• Picasa Web Albums offers 250MB storage space vs. only 20MB at Flickr
• Uploader: Picasa is more "fun" and attractive vs. Flickr Uploader. But Flick has tag-oriented input fields at upload time.
• Photo editing: Decent, free photo editing using Picasa. Flickr doesn't offer a photo editor.
• Slideshow: Picasa Web Albums gives a significantly larger photo view than Flickr's slideshow.
• Flickr lets you add rectangular hotspot "Notes" to any photos. I don't use this feature, but it is a difference between the two services.

Overall: I am using a paid Flickr account for my church, but will definitely give Picasa a try soon. Picasa Web Albums may become my preferred site for church galleries and slideshows.

But ... you knew there was a "but", didn't you! Picasa Web Albums is in beta testing (like a lot of the current Google projects). You must request an invitation and wait until Google gives you the "OK".

If you are just starting Web photo albums, want a free photo album site, and don't feel the need for blogging-related tags and such, Picasa may be perfect for your needs.

Keep personal info off your site

In Microsoft's article, "9 Things Not to Have on Your Web Site", one often overlooked by churches is not including personal information about staff and members.

Everyone likes to see their name or photo on the web. In these days of increasing data theft, though, churches need to do more to protect identity-type information about their members and staff.

Do not show the following on your web site:

• Full names (the most common exception is the pastor)
• Home street addresses (even for the pastor)
• Home or cell phone numbers (even the pastor's cell)
• Members' personal email addresses
• Personal names as staff email addresses
• Staff or member photos (again, the common exception is the pastor)

Coping

• Use email attachments, rather than the web, to give members electronic access church newsletters, advance copies of the Sunday bulletin, and even the church directory.
• If you put your newsletter or similar articles on the web, identify people by position (no name) or by first name only. You may find, like I did, that you'd need to "scrub" the newsletter so much that the effort isn't worth it.
• When you show photos, either avoid using names, or use first names only. Be general. Consider what a thief might do with the information you provide.
• For staff email addresses, use the generic position, not their name. Use pastor@mychurch.org or music@mychurch.org, for example. An added advantage to this is that the staff email address is valid even if (when) the person changes.
• Be very careful when adding names to email lists for bulletins, newsletters, and directories. If someone in your church doesn't personally know them, require them to appear in person and fill out a request form. Don't "assume" that a request by email is an honest one.
• Advertise your personal information policy -- your members will appreciate your concern.

Web myths lead to church decline?

The World Wide Web is changing the world and the way we live in it, including our religious lives. "... those companies and organizations not ready for it are dying as predicted," says a CNN article today.

Many studies show an ever-increasing use of the Web both by religious organizations and individuals and by those seeking spiritual information, direction, or advice. Yet, some churches today disdain the web. Why? Some misconceptions may be at work:

• Myth: It's only for geeks and kids.
  Fact: With millions of people using the web and many more each day, it's no longer the nerdville that it used to be. Soccer Moms are using the web. Seniors communicate with email and get online news and information. Clubs and organizations have their own web sites and email groups.
• Myth: A web site costs too much to host.
  Fact: Any United Methodist church can get a small (5MB) web site free from the General Board of Global Ministries. Microsoft offers a free 30MB web site and your own domain name. Google offers a free 100MB web site. Blogger offers a free Blog. Flickr offers free online photo storage. Cost is no excuse.
• Myth: A church web site is a low priority because it doesn't help "the bottom line".
  Fact: First, a church should not get preoccupied with money, the root of all evil. Secondly, A church needs to minister to all its members, their local community, and "to the ends of the earth". A site on the World Wide Web fills that broad mission need.
• Myth: We don't have any web developers at my church.
  Fact: With free Microsoft and Google type web sites, setting up and maintaining a web site is very simple. You can have a good look and great content without any knowledge of web design. Next excuse?
• Myth: It takes too much time.
  Fact: Your church web site can be simple or complex. Use the time available to set how complex you get. Start simple, then add more pages. The web is too important to ignore. As more people use the web to locate churches and even "preview" a prospective one to visit, church web sites will become even more critical. A visitor to our church this past year said he checked out our entire web site before deciding to visit.

Writing for the web

Here are some fast writing tips that will make your web pages easier and faster to read:

• Write for "scanners".
  People don't read on the Web – they "scan". Let readers easily and quickly find and read the information they seek. Printed documents and directives of all types can benefit from web writing techniques. Even people with PhDs like easy reading.
• Simplify the language.
  Delete words that are not essential. Blast folksy or bureaucratic language. Be direct and clear. Aim for a 50% reduction in words.
• Reduce polysyllabic words to familiar one or two-syllable ones.
  For example, favor "use" over "utilize", "make" over "fabricate".
• Use strong, present tense, active voice action verbs.
  "Someone does something", not "something is done by someone."
• "Chunk" content.
• Use short simple sentences (25 words or less) of varied length.
• Put key information first. Answer the "who, what, where, when, why, and how." Good news journalists use this " inverted pyramid" style too.
• Use "white space".
• Use short paragraphs of just a few sentences, each with one idea.
• Add structure
  Use subheads and bullets to help readers scan the page.
• Use "Styles"
  Just make sure the styles follow the document structure. Heading 1 appears before you use a Heading 2, for example. Subheads would become Heading 3 styles in this structure.
• Limit use of images and apply alt text.
  Use only images essential to the document. Blast the clip art and cute stuff. Look professional. Remember that Section 508 and WCAG require images to include alternative text. (In MS Word, select "Format", "Picture", and then the "Web" tab).
• Never use red or green text.
  Why? Red or green text violates Section 508 accessibility for the handicapped.
• Never underline words.
  Why? Underlines in a web page or doc imply a hyperlink.

Tips for accessibile web pages

Below are some ways to make your web pages more accessible to the handicapped. Read more at the W3C's "Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web sites".

• Page organization. Use headings, lists, and a logical, consistent structure. Use CSS for layout and style where possible.
• Hypertext links. Use text that makes sense when read by itself. For example, avoid "click here."
• Images. Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each image. Avoid animated images.
• Tables. Use tables for data,not layout. Ensure that line-by-line reading ("linearization") of data tables makes sense.
• Graphs and charts. Summarize or use the longdesc attribute. Offer a data table.
• Scripts, applets, & plug-ins. Provide alternative content in case the user's browser or settings does not support these features.
• Frames. If you must use frames, at least use the noframes element and meaningful titles.
• Proofing. Check your work, validate pages, and use the tools, checklist, and guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG.

Free online survey tool

SurveyMonkey offers online surveys. The basic version is free and lets you ask up to 10 questions and collect up to 100 responses. This is perfect for a small to medium organization, including a church. Their professional version is relatively inexpensive and allows unlimited questions and up to 1,000 responses. More responses incur a slight per person charge.

So what could you use it for? Did you ever wish you could poll your members about an issue or even how they like your web site? SurveyMonkey may be the answer to your prayers.

Editorial tips

The "Learn One Thing" blog has an article with several great editing tips . This article includes use of English (insure vs. ensure, for example). The article also links to the ESA Training site's " Editorial Tips" page.

I recommend you bookmark the "Learn One Thing" -- it's a site you should return to often.