The third sector online experience – who’s hitting the mark?

The third sector online experience – who’s hitting the mark?An investigation into the user experience of some of the UK’s biggest not-for-profit websites.

A report by digital user experience agency, Sigma.

December 2015

The third sector online experience – who’s hitting the mark? | December 2015

Executive summary The number of charities lacking basic digital skills increased from 55% in 2014, to 58% in 2015,

according to Lloyds UK Digital index report 2015.

A 2014 report by Blackbaud found that the average online donation to charities across the board had risen by almost a third over the past four years, from £52.87 in 2010 to £69.70 in 2014.

In addition, mobile giving is on the rise – 2014 survey by ‘Give as you live’ revealed that the number of people saying they would rather give by text than any other method went up from 9% in 2012 to 11% in 2013.

In 2013, a quarter of charity funds were being raised through online donations and mobile according to Three mobile, 2014.

Google announced in 2015 that more Google searches now take place on mobile devices than computers…

…yet, only two of the charity sites tested in this report were properly mobile optimised.

This report assesses the user experience (UX) of the following ten not-for-profit websites: SportsAid, British Medical Association (BMA), Age UK, War Child, Trafford Housing Trust, Prince’s Trust, Step Change, Business in the Community (BITC), Citizens Advice, and Victim Support.

In testing, Citizens Advice came out top in our user experience ranking, while Sports Aid came out bottom.

The average user experience score across the 10 sites was 13.55 out of a possible 25 points. While charities are doing a number of things well with their digital channels, there is clearly still much room for improvement.

Users are likely to abandon a website if they become frustrated or annoyed about its layout, usability, design, or functionality.

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Foreword As the world around us becomes increasingly reliant on digital, user experience (UX) has never been more important. The emotions, behaviours and experiences users have when interacting with websites, applications, and product interfaces are all vital to their effectiveness. We can no longer design websites based on aesthetics alone.

The charity sector is one which has traditionally lagged behind when it comes to digital developments. Charity websites have not progressed along with trends and expectations. Instead, most have arguably been designed for launch and updated rarely. This aversion to change could stem from concerns about whether it is worth investing budget into a seamless and accessible website – for charities, every last penny spent must be carefully considered.

However, in an increasingly digital world where people are more technology savvy and connected than ever, it’s never been so important for charities to optimise the UX of their websites. Doing this well can boost donations, recruit support, convey a charity’s cause and messages effectively, provide an overview of important services, and offer easy access to crucial resources such as training. Getting it wrong can result in long-term reputational and commercial damage. UX is something charities can no longer ignore.

In our research we explored the user journey and experience across 10 of the UK’s biggest and most important charities, looking at a number of factors, including:

• Are the websites fit for purpose?

• Is their purpose obvious?

• Are they easy to understand?

• Are they simple to navigate?

• Are they accessible? That is, suitable for those with disabilities, visual impairments or assistive

technology needs.

• Do they work across all devices?

• Is the language that they use easy to understand?

We hope you enjoy the findings and can take some useful learnings from our report.

Hilary Stephenson, managing director at Sigma

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What is UX and why is it so important in the charity sector? In basic terms, UX is a combination of all of the perceptions, emotions, and behaviours a person experiences when interacting with a website, application, or product interface. A good UX reflects the needs, preferences, and behaviours of a website’s users and delivers the most compelling and engaging experience possible.

There are a number of considerations when designing a website to make sure every visitor is able to find what they need easily, interact with it successfully, and don’t leave it frustrated. While it’s easy to get caught up on the look and feel of a website, none of this means anything if the user experience isn’t seamless.

Unlike traditional channels, a website or application can be constantly amended and updated to match how supporters and beneficiaries prefer to receive information, as well as being a crucial platform for collecting donations, providing advice, and offering important services online. In the charity sector in particular, a well-designed user experience can encourage visitors to behave more charitably, convey a charity’s messages and aims more concisely, help users to navigate the exact information they need, and even encourage more people to volunteer for a cause.

If done badly, a poor UX can have negative effects such as lost supporters, uncompleted donations, bad perceptions, reputational damage, frustrated web users, misconstrued advice, a lack of knowledge around services such as training opportunities, and more.

And while UX is by no means a magic formula, adapting a user-centric approach has been proven to help drive results dramatically.

“If done badly, a poor UX can have negative effects”

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“A responsive website which can easily be updated is a must for any charity nowadays, be that a start-up or a well-established organisation. With search engines penalising websites which don’t adapt to different devices, it’s worth charities spending the time and effort to make sure their website works properly on everything from a smartphone to a desktop, especially if they rely on e-commerce as a major source of funding. But whichever the charity, it’s also important to keep the content fresh and varied – which can be a big burden for a small team.

As well as a website, it really pays to think about a charity’s digital presence as part of a broader communications strategy. Being able to share messages through a variety of channels is essential. Not only can social media posts raise awareness and generate funds among new audiences, but they’re a great way of celebrating successes and engaging with existing supporters too. However, where some charities fail is that they forget that social media platforms represent a series of conversations. Again, staying in these conversations can be a real challenge for charities to resource properly.”

Phil Nicol, Head of Business Development, Diversity Role Models

“With search engines penalising websites which don’t

adapt to different devices, it’s worth charities spending the time and effort to make sure

their website works properly on everything from a smartphone

to a desktop”

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Our testing: methodology and results In order to generate a cohesive picture of the user experience of UK not-for-profit websites, we analysed and tested the websites of 10 leading UK not-for-profits in September 2015. The 10 organisations were chosen to provide a varied sample - and included charities with different objectives, audiences, and causes.

Each website was ranked on a number of factors, with a maximum score of 25 points. Ratings were split in the following four categories - accessibility, mobile responsiveness, usability, and self-help. A number of factors were assessed in each category – these are outlined in the full table of results on page 20.

Results table

Charity User experience (UX) points score

Citizens Advice 19

Prince’s Trust 17

British Medical Association (BMA) 16.5

Victim Support 16.5

Age UK 15.5

Step Change 13

Trafford Housing 11

Business in the Community (BITC) 10

War Child 9

Sports Aid 8

The average user experience score across the

sites was 13.55 out of a possible 25

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1. Accessibility

“Helping users who may be disabled or visually impaired

navigate a website easily. The practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with,

or access to websites.”What we looked for…

• The readability score (the ease with which a reader can understand the written text) of each site

• Whether the site’s images contained alternative text to help people using screen readers

• Colour contrast across the site

• Whether site videos had captions

• How headings on the site were structured

• Whether sites contained links such as ‘read more’, or a more comprehensive description

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Positively, our research found that the majority of the sites we tested have taken steps to become more accessible, and we found seven out of ten of the sites have a good readability score, meaning that users can read content easily, in a way that makes sense. However, half of the sites had poor colour contrast, and only two out of ten contained captions on their online videos. Coming out on top of the accessibility scale - both scoring five out of a possible six accessibility points - were Age UK and Citizens Advice. Some of the strong accessibility aspects of the Age UK website were:

1. It supplied transcripts for videos, meaning that visitors to the site with hearing difficulties or no access to speakers, were able to understand them. To make this even more beneficial, the charity could add captions on the video which would match the transcript to the timing of the video, making it more useful.

2. The website also boasted a good colour contrast – using an accessibility evaluation tool Wave, no colour contrast issues were detected which means users with colour blindness or poor eye sight should have no problem with the colours used on the website.

3. The charity used descriptive links – for example ‘what advice could you get’, rather than ‘read more’. This provides more context to the link and is particularly beneficial for users using a screen reader.

4. In addition, some links on the website are underlined and other links become underlined once rolled over, making them easier for users to recognise. This could be further improved by having all links underlined as the default state. This would also benefit users operating touch screen devices.

Key themes

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Accessibility is crucial for not-for-profits who often don’t have a specific target audience - information must be conveyed successfully to the general public and it’s important to remember that a number of these users will have a disability or impairment that affects how they use a website. In general, videos not containing captions and poor use of ‘read more’ links were two of the main elements that we found were weak on most websites we looked at. Only two out of the ten websites we tested used captions properly, and half used ‘read more’ links poorly. In addition, half had bad colour contrast scores.

The SportsAid site, in particular, needs a number of improvements to make it more accessible:

1. The site had poor colour contrast in certain areas of the site – in particular in the footer links, and the mega menu link.

2. Links such as ‘find out more’ are used throughout – users wouldn’t necessarily know what they are finding out more about. Also, users using a screen reader would just hear ‘find out more’ without any context around it.

What steps need to be taken to improve accessibility?

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2. Usability

“Highly usable websites are unambiguous, consider how

information is presented, and ensure that important items are

placed in appropriate areas.” What we looked for…

• Do the links within the sites change colour, or underline when they are hovered over?

• Do they contain breadcrumbs, which allow users to see easily where they’re on a website?

• Does each site have an HTML site map, showing users all of a site’s pages?

• Did the sites contain good navigation terminology?

• Do they have a consistent design across the pages?

• Are they overcrowded and have too much text?

• How consistent are font sizes and type styles?

• How intuitive is the navigational model?

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We were shocked by the number of sites failing in this category as the usability of a website is one of the most crucial aspects to its success. Half of the websites didn’t contain an HTML sitemap, or easy-to-use navigation bars. The state of usability in this sector might be, in part, a result of a lack of investment in website UX. In these circumstances, an untrained eye might not be aware of how to optimise a website for usability. However, British Medical Association, Prince’s Trust, and Victim Support performed well in this category. Here’s why BMA got it right:

1. The content links are purple, changing to grey and underlined when a user rolls over them. This helps the user differentiate between text and links, making for an easier navigation.

2. The majority of text is split up into paragraphs and bullet points, resulting in content that is easier to browse and digest

3. The site map is very user friendly - designed for ‘humans’, rather than Google bots, which some websites sometimes do for SEO purposes, without really considering the user experience. Users can access the site using the sitemap in an easy way - it is not just one long list of pages.

4. In addition, pages on the site contain a breadcrumb which help users visualise where they are on the site, as well as helping them navigate back to previous pages. However, the breadcrumb only appears when the user is deep in the structure. This should be on higher level pages as well, to aid navigation.

Key themes

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Although BMA got it right, one of the biggest issues in this category across all of the websites was the navigation bars – only four out of the ten sites had ones which were easy to use. As it’s one of the most important elements of the website, to help users find their way around, not-for-profits should be getting this right. War Child in particular scored quite low in the usability scale, predominately due to inconsistencies in font sizes and typeface, as well as confusing navigation. Here are some of the mistakes being made with this website, and ways it can be improved to increase its usability.

1. The site has a confusing secondary navigation - it is not that obvious that it is a secondary navigation and going on to two lines isn’t recommended, and can be confusing for readers. In addition, there are inconsistencies in the typeface used throughout.

2. There is no HTML sitemap to provide an overview of the site and there is no breadcrumb on the site. This means it is difficult for users to know where they are within their journey, which can become confusing.

How can the usability of not-for-profit websites be improved?

The site has a confusing secondary navigation

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3. Mobile friendliness

“Ensuring a website is easy to use and navigate across a range of mobile devices, and

ensuring no information is lost as a result of viewing a site

on mobile.” What we looked for…

• Is the website responsive or adaptive?

• Is the mobile website finger friendly?

• Does the charity have a mobile app?

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Perhaps the most shocking category we studied; most of the sites scored very low when it came to mobile optimisation. It’s not unusual for not-for-profit sites to lag a little behind the wider industry as digital isn’t always prioritised as highly as it should be when it comes to budget setting and strategy. However, only three of the ten sites had a specific mobile application, with only two having a responsive website, and three having an adaptive one. In addition, only 40% of the sites were finger friendly. This means that half of the well-known charity sites we reviewed had no mobile friendly website or app at all. However, a couple of the sites did get this very right. British Medical Association and Citizens Advice came out top, with three out of four possible points scored for both. Citizens Advice was a particularly good example. The website is responsive which will improve the user’s experience across different screen sizes and devices. The menu is easy to use and users have the ability to zoom in and out of the page. In addition:

1. The mobile menu says ‘menu’ with a burger icon, this helps users who may not know what burger icon (the three dashes highlighting the menu) means, which aids usability.

2. The buttons are clear on mobile – on mobile devices users don’t see roll over states because there is no mouse, but buttons are obvious enough to know they are clickable; also, links are in blue so they are easily identifiable.

3. There is a mobile application named ‘Budget Tracker’ which can help users budget and manage their finances.

Key themes

The mobile menu says ‘menu’

with a burger icon, this helps users who may

not know what a burger icon is

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Although it might not be a high priority, it’s really important that not-for-profits take steps to make their websites mobile-friendly. Trafford Housing and Business in the Community came bottom in our research, scoring zero on all of the touch points within this category. None of these three websites are responsive or adaptive, which would improve the user experience across devices. In addition, all score badly on Google Page Speed Insights – which should be a basic consideration for a charity website.

1. The Trafford Housing website does not respond when the browser is resized / on mobile – this means users will have to scroll horizontally and zoom, resulting in a poor user experience.

2. The links are small – so hard to notice and press as a mobile user.

3. The menu is difficult to use on mobile, as links are too small to click.

How mobile responsiveness can be improved

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4. Self-help

“Enabling users to donate or volunteer, to access day-to-day services, or interact effectively

with the organisation is important for charity websites.”

What we looked for…

• Can the user do a lot online?

• Can they find information on how donated money is used?

• Can users donate using the site?

• Can they find information on volunteering easily?

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For not-for-profits, self-help is one of the most important factors in determining the success of the website. It can have a big impact on directing users to key, action-oriented information, and affect donations, volunteer or event sign-ups, and so on. Age UK, Citizens Advice and Prince’s Trust scored well in this category. All three of these sites provided very good self-help options and allowed users to complete a number of actions and find information independently on the website. Prince’s Trust did well in this category because:

1. The way they spend their money is very clear and in the ‘about the trust’ section - you don’t have to dig deep within the site to find it.

2. Donating is made easy with lots of clear ‘calls to action’ and donation buttons across the site.

Key themes

Donating is made easy with

lots of clear ‘calls to action’ and

donation buttons across the site

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Business in the Community came bottom of this category. There are very few self-help options on the website, and it’s difficult to find where they spend their money online. Due to the lack of self-help options, no example is available to illustrate this. In order for charities to improve their self-help, users should be able to clearly see how the organisation uses the money raised, find out more about volunteering, and easily see the opportunities the charity might offer them.

“Users should be able to clearly see how the organisation uses

the money raised, find out more about volunteering, and

easily see the opportunities the charity might offer them.”

How can not-for-profits improve their self-help?

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“In first place was Citizens Advice, scoring 19/25 points.”

This website scored full points in the self-help category, five out of six for accessibility, three out of four for mobile friendliness, and only missed out on three points out of a possible 11 in the usability category. Prince’s Trust came second with 17 points.

In bottom position is SportsAid, scoring just 9/25 points across the categories. Unfortunately, this website scored low across the categories, with no points at all for mobile friendliness, and only one point for accessibility. Self-help options were also poor across the site.

The average score across the 10 websites was 13.55/25.

While all ten websites had some good and bad user experience factors, the key, common factors we found across all ten sites we reviewed are as follows:

Positive:

• The majority have taken steps to make the website more accessible

• The sites that do allow users to donate through them demonstrate this clearly on the site

• The majority of content on the sites is useful and informative

• Most of the sites highlight where the user is in the site structure through breadcrumbs on the menu

Negative:

• Half of the sites we reviewed did not have a positive experience on mobile devices

• Many have an outdated look and feel

• The majority of sites have poor colour contrast, making it difficult to notice or see things

• Many of the websites have poor mega menus

• And even though most of the sites display financial information on how money is spent, it is not

particularly easy to find

Results overview

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Charity Sports Aid

British Medical

AssociationAgeUK War

Child

Trafford Housing

Trust

Prince’s Trust

Step Change BITC Citizens

AdviceVictim

Support

Usability

Links have hover state Y Y Y Y N Y Y Y Y Y

Contains breadcrumb Y Y Y N Y Y Y Y Y Y

HTML sitemap Y Y Y N Y Y N N N N

Good terminology of navigation Y Y Y N N Y Y Y Y Y

Menu highlights where user is Y N Y Y Y N Y Y N Y

Contains carousel 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0

Shares template/consistent design N Y N N Y Y Y N Y Y

Not too much text N Y N Y Y Y N Y N Y

Consistency of font sizes N Y N Y N Y N Y Y N

Consistency of typefaces Y Y N N Y Y Y Y Y Y

Clear navigation Y N N N N N Y N Y Y

Mobile

Responsive website N N Partial N N Y N N Y Y

Adaptive website N Y N Y N N Y N N N

Mobile app N Y N N N N N N Y N

Finger friendly N Y Y N N Y N N Y Y

Accessibility

Good readability Y Y Y Y Y N Y N Y N

Majority of images have alt text N Y Y N Y Y Y Y Y Y

Good colour contrast N Y (bar footer) Y N N Y N Y Y N

Videos have captions N Y Transcript only N N N Y N N Y (but

wrong)

Good heading structure N Y Y Y N Y N N Y Y

Doesn't contain links such as read more N N Y Y N N N Y Y Y

Self help

Can do a lot online N Y Y Y Y Y Y N Y Y

Can find how money is used N N Y Y Y Y N N Y N

Can donate using the site Y N Y Y N Y N N Y Y

Volunteering Fund-raise N Y Fund-

raise Y Y Y N Y Y

Total 9 16.5 15.5 11 11 17 13 10 19 16.5

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Detailed results of our evaluations and user testing can be found in the table below.

With so much information at hand, this issue could be seen as a minefield for charities, and they would be forgiven for not knowing where to start. For not-for-profits wanting to make the next steps towards a more user-friendly website, we’ve pulled together some of the key aspects they should focus on first and foremost, in each of the four key categories.

In order to be accessible, charity sites should be easy to understand and use by all readers, including those who may have a disability or visual impairment.

To do this, charities should:

• Caption any videos or podcasts

• Ensure appropriate colours are used together to result in good colour contrast

• Make sure text is easy to read and make sense of, for a variety of different people and reading levels

• Ensure images are accompanied by alt text

In order to be usable, charity sites should enhance the user experience when navigating and reading information on the site.


• Ensure font size and typeface is consistent throughout

• Use breadcrumbs to highlight where the user is on the site and eliminate any confusion

• Not contain too much text

• Ensure links are underlined (or underlined when hovered over) to differentiate between links and plain text

• Keep users firmly in mind when designing the site and creating content. This should ideally

include user research and testing

In order to be mobile-friendly, the user experience on websites should not differ across different devices (e.g. from tablet, to PC, to mobile)


• Ensure buttons are easy to press with the average-sized finger

• Have either an adaptive or responsive layout (depending on the aims of the charity)

• Also consider having a specific mobile application

In order to allow users to access self-help options, charity sites should give users the opportunity to complete a number of tasks online.


• Not just ensure users can easily find key information relating to the charity, but actively help

them in doing so

• Clearly signpost how money is spent

• Allow users to easily donate online, sign-up to volunteer or attend events, and transact

with the charity digitally rather than just by phone or in person

Where do I start?

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Action Breaks Silence is a UK registered charity established to create a world where women and girls can live their lives free from the fear of sexual and gender-based violence. They aim to achieve this primarily by offering a two-tiered educational programme:

A three hour workshop, comprising a fact-filled motivational discussion and physical skills, designed to empower and protect girls who are vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence and, importantly, who feel they have no voice

A four hour workshop for seven to 11 year old boys which is specifically created to build feelings of deep- rooted empathy towards women and girls and, in the longer term, prevent abusive or violent behaviour

“We spoke to Stephanie Highett, their CEO about the importance of digital channels to a growing

charity and the challenges of investing in and maintaining an

engaging web presence.”How useful do you think a website is in collecting donations, raising awareness and promoting the work of a charity? And is this a key channel for your charity?

In this day and age, when “Google” has become an accepted verb in dictionaries worldwide, I believe a website is the single most important promotional resource available to charities. It is the first place a potential donor or partner will go in order to ascertain the credibility of the organisation and to understand its work. As such, anything that can be done to make the website as interactive and compelling as possible is an incredibly helpful tool in a charity’s armoury to raise awareness and - ultimately - funds. This is certainly the case for Action Breaks Silence, although we are currently in the process of having to upgrade our website as it has outgrown the (free) platform which we used when we first started our work in 2013. We greatly look forward to launching a new website which will both fully reflect the extent of our work, two years on, be much more dynamic and interactive and - critically - also support key functions such enabling direct donations.

A charity’s view

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Why do you think some charities are failing to make their websites user friendly and fully accessible (that is, so that anyone, whether they have a disability or impairment or not) can navigate the website with ease). Do you feel that it is important to change this?

I am sure that every organisation, charitable or otherwise, would want their website to be absolutely ‘best in class’ in terms of accessibility or functionality. I cannot imagine anyone actively choosing to have anything less. However, many charities are currently facing some very real financial challenges and, in these circumstances, the “would like to have’s” inevitably have to give way to the “must have’s”, especially if the priority is to prevent any impact on the charity’s beneficiaries. So, yes, whilst I think it terribly important that charities aim to have the highest quality websites, the cost considerations involved will unfortunately always be a factor.

What do you think the next steps are for charities and their websites?

I think the best websites will be those which are highly interactive, enabling charities to keep their supporters and partners totally up to date and involved. For example, I long to make Action Breaks Silence’s website a fantastic portal for wide-ranging discussion on any issues relating to women’s safety. Beyond that, I also dream of the day when survivors of any form of sexual and gender-based violence can access a supportive, loving and secure virtual community through our site.

Our work to date has been almost entirely in disadvantaged or marginalised communities in India and South Africa but even there it is clear how, increasingly, women and girls have access to smart phones or the Internet. For that reason, I think that, in order to provide ongoing support and a channel for beneficiaries to have a voice, charities will have to evolve their websites to match the relentless speed of technological change and the endless quest for up to date debate and information.

Do you think more emphasis/resource needs to be put into this channel in particular for charities?

From what I have seen on the ground, without doubt.

Have you ever experienced any issues with the user experience of your website?

Yes, sadly. The free platform we used when Action Breaks Silence was first set up has prevented us from offering a number of key donation options on our ‘donate’ page. In addition, we came into work one morning to find that the platform no longer supported a Facebook or Twitter feed, which had been a fantastic way of keeping people updated with our progress, especially while we were teaching our “Empowerment and Personal Safety” workshops to over 19,000 women and girls in India and South Africa. For these two reasons alone, it has become an absolute priority to re-launch our website in 2016.

Stephanie Highett, CEO of Action Breaks Silence

www.actionbreakssilence.org

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1. Charities must develop a digital strategy, or be left behind - As the world continues to prioritise digital channels, charities must move with the times or they risk being left bottom of the pile. With competition for followers higher than ever, they will need to work even harder to increase donations and recruit support to their causes, and make it easier for people to access their products or services. Here, the user journey and how they experience a website will be key. Those that fail to make digital a priority will only be overtaken by those that do have a digital strategy in place.

2. Understanding your audience is key - Before making changes to a website, considering its audience is crucial; it is pointless designing a state of the art website only to realise that users cannot engage with it properly. Often charity websites have a complex market segmentation and no niche audience, making designing for UX much more difficult. For charity sites, the focus must be on simplicity. Avoiding new and unhelpful trends when it comes to website design might be difficult, but some simply won’t be suitable for a charity website. Carefully considering new trends and how an audience will react to them is crucial – and as a general rule, for charities it might be best to avoid them due to the broad nature of target audiences.

3. Designing for accessibility is crucial - UX is particularly important for websites that might regularly have visitors that are disabled or have visual impairments – something which is common amongst not-for-profits. There are aspects of a website which can be customised to make it accessible for those that are visually impaired, for example. Breaking content down into small sections, providing auto-complete elements in drop down bars and search menus to reduce user error, and using descriptive labels and navigation panes are just a few things that can be done to make the process more user-friendly. But one of the most vital things to do is simplify any complex processes and signpost the user’s current location - particularly useful when users are filling in forms, which is often the donation method.

4. Prioritise mobile optimisation – One of the most concerning findings of this research was the lack of focus charities seem to be placing on optimising their sites for mobile. As consumers continue to demand the same journey on mobile as they would on desktop, this will be a crucial consideration for charities. Mobile giving is only likely to increase further in coming years and those that don’t invest in a fully optimised site will be losing a vital channel for donations.

Key takeaways

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User experience (UX) – The term user experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with a company, its services, its website, and its products. Throughout this report, we refer to the user experience of a website as its ‘user experience’ or ‘UX’.

Readability - Readability is the term used for arranging words and groups of words in a way that allows the readers eye to access content easily, and in a way that makes sense.

Usability - Usability is the term used to measure the quality of a person’s experience in interacting with content or services. In this report the term refers to the look-and-feel, navigation, interface design, and information architecture of a website.

Accessibility – Website accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. Delving further, the term is used to explain that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. The term accessibility encompasses older people with changing abilities due to aging. Accessibility also encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities.

Adaptive - The term adaptive design is the term used for the website layout that detects the device it’s on and other features, and then provides the appropriate layout based on a predefined set of viewport sizes and other characteristics.

Responsive – The term responsive design is the term that describes the website layout that is based on the usefulness of flexibility – the layout creates a single fluid website for any device. Responsive websites use media queries, flexible grids, and responsive images to create a user experience that flexes and changes based on a multitude of factors.

Breadcrumb trail – The term used for the design that reduces the number of actions a website visitor needs to take in order to get to a higher-level page. The design also improves the findability of website sections and pages. They are also an effective visual aid that indicates the location of the user within the website’s hierarchy, making it a great source of contextual information for landing pages.

Mega menu - A drop down interface that is triggered by the user hovering over a link or defined area. This dropdown usually shows all options in one main, mega-panel and often groups related topics into categories.

* Site screenshots true as of 19th November 2015 * All websites were tested throughout August and September 2015

Glossary of key terms

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“We’re a leading specialist in user experience consulting

and design, information management, and web technologies.”

We provide research, analysis, design, development and support services, with specific expertise in usability, accessibility, content and document management, websites, intranets and online applications.

We are part of the Sigma group, a 2000-strong IT services company based in Sweden and with offices throughout the world. The UK team is the centre of excellence in the group for user experience services.

We draw upon the capabilities of the Sigma group for many of our development and technology projects.

About Sigma

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