Peoples Advocacy Network
[April 2004] The Peoples Advocacy Network provides advocacy training packages, one day workshops, specialist training, assistance and advice. The website has been made so that people with interests in advocacy, social care and training in the areas of mental illness and learning difficulties can share ideas.
Where's this group?
The site loads quickly and easily and states clearly on the Home Page what the organisation does. My problem is where they do it. I believe this is a New Zealand group, but I'm not absolutely certain. The address uses a .org, generally used for international organisations or for those based in the US. The "About Us" page is about three of the people involved, rather than about the organisation. This page provides clues that it's a NZ organisation, but nothing definitive. I'd like to see it clearly stated on the site where the organisation does its work. A contact postal address would help in this respect.
Large text
The site uses nice, crisp text and a plain background which makes it easy to read. If the visitor's having problems and needs larger text there are instructions right on the Home Page about how Windows users can increase the font size. Given that many people are using Macs, and that both Windows users and Mac users these days are using a variety of web browsers including Safari, Firefox, Mozilla and Opera it would be good to see these instructions expanded or made a little more general. One approach might be to have brief instructions on the Home Page for those using Internet Explorer with a link to more complete information for everyone else.
Page titles
Each page has its own title, as you can see in the Title Bar of your browser. This is a good thing as it helps with search engine rankings and for people adding pages to their Favorites. The titles are a little skimpy though, referring only to "The Network". Again, it could be helpful to include "NZ" in there and to mention advocacy.
Pop-up Navigation
There's a simple navigation bar on the left-hand side of the pages. It's clear and simple and works well. It's a bit of a mystery though why the Advocacy Information section uses a pop-up when the rest of the navigation is an indented list. I overlooked the pop-up numerous times and nearly missed out on that information. That would be a shame as there's useful information on those pages. The site could easily remove the pop-up and just list the pages in the same way as the rest of the pages are listed.
Strange coding
A peek behind the scenes at the HTML reveals some rather strange and tangled coding, which doesn't validate. Valid pages are those that follow international HTML standards and are most likely to successfully deliver their information across the broadest range of circumstances. It's unfortunate too that headings don't seem to be coded as headings but as big, bold text. This reduces the site's accessibility and usability.
Summary
This is an informative site which needs a little work to maximise its usefulness. It has a fairly sound base, essentially good navigation and a clear design. It would be helpful to see clearer information about where the organisation is based. A little more consistency in the navigation would ensure visitors access all the information.
advocacynetwork.org