Clarissa Peterson talks about Content Strategy for Responsive Websites

Clarissa Peterson spoke to the January meeting of Web Content Mavens about building responsive websites. A responsive website is one that automatically adjusts the display to suit the device of the user, whether it be a common cell phone, or a giant screen desktop. Obviously this poses many challenges for web designers.

She opened her presentation by observing that "websites for mobile mostly suck". She further observed that "mobile web strategy is the same as web strategy, but without ignoring mobile," and that responsive web design is where we are going."

The Boston Globe one of the first responsive web sites, it easily adjusts the display to suit the user's device.

Adaptive technique is how you adapt content arrangement to display on different screen sizes.

Peterson observed that there are a lot of really bad responsive websites, going on to say that, "it's not like we nailed web design before we tried responsive design."

Peterson suggested that designers keep in mind the context in which people are viewing information and discard the idea that people only use mobile for activities on the run. She went on to point out that there is no mobile web, there is only one web, which we view in different ways.

Not all cell phones are smart phones, Peterson pointed out that you have to accommodate those users. (As someone who has an old fashioned cell phone, this was a welcome observation. My hosting company, Hostway, in most ways an excellent hosting service, has a webmail system that is virtually unusable with my cell phone.) Peterson said that 17% cell phone users browse the web on their phones, so it is an error to assume that people are using their computers. Indeed, the demarcations between cell phone/tablet/laptop are becoming increasingly blurred.

Peterson observed that the beauty of the web is openness, you want to be available to everyone. Therefore you need content parity, users of cell phones must be able to access your website's content, just as a computer user would be able to view it. She said Consumer Reports is an example of a website that fails to make all of its content available to cell phone users, specifically the recall information is not available to cell phone users.

At this point there were several questions about 508 requirements. Peterson repeated her view that web designers must make their sites available to all, without regard to device or the special needs of the user.

When asked about clients who do not wish to pay for responsive sites, Peterson urged designers to educate their clients about the necessity of responsive design. Audience members agreed that static sites would just have to be completely rebuilt as responsive sites two years down the road.

Continuing to emphasize the need to design for all users, Peterson reminded her audience that iPhones do not read flash, and therefore it was necessary to give iPhone users a non-flash alternative to view content.

Peterson offered examples of good responsive websites:
World Wildlife Fund
Emeril's New Orleans - rare example of good restaurant responsive site
William and Mary University
Department Homeland Security

The Rock Creek Group was gracious enough to offer a site for the meeting plus refreshments. Web Content Mavens is a group of web designers. If your company is seeking a way to reach out to this community, sponsoring a meeting or offering hospitality would be an economical way to do so.

New to me tech blogs

InteleNews, the blog of Intelenex

Perusing Pirooz's World

Avectra Blog

The AKG Blog

MicroPact BPM blog

The Interfolio Blog

Innocative-e Blogs

meetdux.com, project management for sharepoint + sharepoint for project management

Society of Women Engineers Region G Blog

ICF Ironworks Blogs

New to me local blogs

EDM: effective database management, This weblog is focused on the association management system (AMS) software market. The objective of this blog is to provide a forum for dicussing issues that affect the AMS market and the associations that use off-the-shelf AMS software packages.

Acronym, the blog of the ASEA

Privasoft

New to me data visualization blog

Data-Wunder, from Switzerland.

Today in content management

Rutrell Yasin reporting for Government Computer News:

The Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information is looking to deploy cloud-based customer relationship and project management software over the next six weeks to its Regional Extension Centers.

The Labor Department is making similar moves.

How to migrate your blog to SharePoint.

Lora Bentley of IT Business Edge interviews Patrick Eitenbichler, director of marketing for information management solutions at HP.


Welcome to the Real Story Group; also on Twitter.

All from Presto Vivace's Google News: Content Management Systems.

Huh?

From J. Timothy Sprehe's opinion piece in Federal Computer Week:

So what does the agency do to achieve integrated information management? It conceptualizes the solution as one of standardizing on a single ECM system toolset.

I have been working in content management since 1994 and I have only a vague idea as to what he means by that. If I don't understand it, there is a good chance other readers don't understand it. The struggle against IT speak is a constant one and sooner or later we all succumb; but if you want to make your point to the general public, or at least policy makers, you have to make your prose more accessible.

Electronic records that self-destruct and other records management news

'Vanish' Encryption Raises Serious E-Discovery Concerns

Last week I spoke to Adam Landa, a Greenberg Traurig shareholder who co-chairs the law firm's e-retention and e-discovery practice group about the Vanish encryption technology that, in essence, allows electronic documents to "self destruct" after a period of time.

e-Discovery Policy Could Have Stopped Steroid Leaks

Facebook Trifecta: "Serious Privacy Gaps"

Will the PACER paywall come (slowly) tumbling down?

Is There an E-Discovery Bubble?

Electronic Health Records medley

The Montgomery Advertiser reports that Electronic health records are a headache for doctors.

The Industry Standard informs us that the Military electronic health records system is "intolerable."

BusinessWeek reports that few hospitals are embracing electronic health record systems.

Avery Comarow of US News & World Report asks if electronic health records are hazardous to your health.

Healthcare IT News that the he Louisville Health Information Exchange (LouHIE), a Kentucky e-Health Network for the Louisville region, will create an electronic health record banking system for its members.

MIT Technology Review: what electronic health records can learn from the iPhone.

From HIT Sphere:

Healthcare IT Guy reports that CCHIT set to meet with healthcare open source advocates. Neil Versel thinks that CCHIT critics need to pay attention to this development.

Crossover Heathcare calls the EHR adoption rate pitiful.

Medicare Connectivity offers a preview of HIMSS 09.

Healthblog announces a special webcast about unified communications technology.

Oh dear, Candid CIO tells us that it is time to tear up your IT strategy.

Learn to speak the language of the C-Suite

Yesterday evening I attended the March meeting of Web Content Mavens to hear Lisa Welchman’s presentation on how to explain web site management to senior management. She spoke with candor about the problems of persuading the technical, marketing, and management representatives to work together.

Welchman said that it was important to establish governance authority at the very beginning. For example, IT must have final say on load balancing while marketing must have final say on presentation. I asked her if making those decisions up front might be arbitrary, as discussion might prove the original theory to be unworkable. Welchman was insistent that it was essential to have a broad framework for governance. (I was thinking back to the Federal XML Work Group meeting of May 18 2004. At the IRS, content is driven by Business Operating Divisions and process owners, leading to duplication of effort and an updating nightmare. In the future, content will be driven by the content data model, MITS via BSMO/EDMO, an easily updatable trusted source. Claude Matthews predicted a collision and I suspect it has been very difficult.)

Welchman said that web experts should not talk about meta data or taxonomy; but rather document specific benefits to be had by implementing change.

She will be joining Tony Byrne for Web Tools and Rules next month. I am sorry I won’t be able to attend, because it sounds like the premier web content event in our area.

Obama's electronic health record iniative

John Mancini informs us that there's gold in them thar health records.

FOSE will be holding a workshop on it:
A CONNECTed Healthcare System: The Federal Government’s Role in Promoting the Nationwide Health Information Network

This is good news for the American health care system and IT industry. We could use some good news.

Edit
Online Health Data in Remission

Nascent Industry Ready With Systems If Money and Standards Are Resolved

Imagesets in content management

Hippo CTO blog - Arjé Cahn

Slightly harder is a situation where you need the image to be translated into 21 different languages, because it's part of the website's navigation. The "About us" button in that case might need a translation workflow process that runs the image through a number of qualified translators and designers. You'll end up with one handle containing 21 different variants (with images that state "Au Sujet de Nous", "Over ons", "关于我们", etc).

I can see why a website would be designed that way; but usually the home page is set by the origin of the inquiry. For example, if I go to the Deutche Welle website I am automatically directed towards the English language homepage, presumably an inquiry originating from Germany would land on the German language homepage.

New to me content managment blog

assertTrue(this), Techno-cruft from around the Web, plus really pithy observations about Java and other future legacy technologies. Yes, pithy I say.

Presidential Records Act in the digital age

National Archives begins transfering presidential data

A monumental data transfer mission now faces The National Archives and Records Administration.

Coptering away from Washington, D.C. today, President Bush left behind 100 terabytes of electronic data in a variety of proprietary formats. To put that in perspective, all the books, manuscripts, publications and recordings of various kinds stored in the Library of Congress over the past 208 years adds up to 82.6 terabytes.

Clearly all the records management laws and practices will have to be revisited to acommodate online communications in all of its forms.

Great moments in content management

Whoops! Army Files Found on Used MP3 Player

It's like Burn After Reading, the latest Coen brothers' flick, come to life. Well, kinda sorta.

"A New Zealand man has found confidential United States military files on an MP3 player," the Age reports. He bought at an Oklahoma thrift shop, for less than ten bucks.

The data was from 2005, still someone didn't observe procedure.

Jan NCC AIIM meeting: Stephen Levenson, Administrative Office of the US Courts talks about PDF/A

Thursday, January 15, 2009
Dinner Event
Westin Arlington Gateway

PDF/A What is it and why do I want it? Get an update on the First International Conference for PDF/A held in Europe last year! You can come learn how PDF/A is being used throughout government and industry, how to lower costs, and how to exchange content. Stephen Levenson who is the international convener for this standard and Chair of the AIIM Standards Board will discuss this standard and how it fits into other standards under development through AIIM. This presentation should interest practitioners of records management, CIOs’ and General Counsels of organizations.

We will also explore:

* What is PDF/A
* Why do I want or need it?
* When does document preservation start?
* How to keep long term costs under control.
* How does this fit into and effect ECM program.

About our speaker:

Stephen Levenson is the IT Specialist for Policy and Planning for the Administrative Office of the US Courts in Washington, DC.

Department of Understatement

Bush's exit to put new e-records system to the test

Surely by now we are all aware that we are dealing with something a lot more, shall we say complicated, then records management? This is not simply an IT task.

I don't envy the technical workers at National Archives. They will have to cope with competing requests from some very nasty disputes in the near future. I have complete confidence in their ability to play it completely by-the-book and totally professional.

Edit -
From the Sunlight Foundation: Shredding Party?

New to me Drupal blog

The Universal Pantograph Representation is the essence of networking

Call for Speakers: Enterprise Search Summit 2009

Deadline November 10, 2008

We are now accepting proposals to speak at Enterprise Search Summit 2009, which will be held May 12-13 in New York. (Pre-conference sessions May 11). Click here to submit a proposal. The deadline for submitting proposals is November 10, 2008.

New launches in online advertising

CMS Wire reports that Google has created an online ad builder that enables advertisers to build their own ads without hiring a professional. I suspect the real skill lies in purchasing the right key words.

Impelsys is now offering a new content management system for selling print content online: iPublishCentral.

Litigation support: growth sector of IT

Via Gabe's Guide:
Subprime mess sends number of fraud lawsuits higher

Investors sued 110 companies for alleged stock fraud in the first half of this year, up from 107 in the previous six months, according to a study released Tuesday by the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse and Cornerstone Research. About half of the suits included claims related to subprime and other credit losses, the authors of the study said.

Subprime fiasco keeping class action lawyers busy

SEC to Examine Subprime Accounting

Accounting software and criminal justice IT should also see substantial growth.

Sigh.

Note - Gabe's Guide and Kevin LaCroix take a similar view.