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Web: www.ageconcern.org.uk

Developer: in-house

I'm genuinely interested in what will happen as we all get older, whether my pension will be enough and if breakthroughs in science will let me experience a happy and fit retirement.

Ageing isn't all gloomy is it? Well it appears to be, if the new Age Concern site (www.ageconcern.org.uk) is anything to go by. This is a surprisingly dull effort.

I'm sorry, but very little attempt has been made to inspire me to read the information, engage me in activities or make me reach my hand into my pocket. I really feel that they've miss-ed some real opportunities.

The first thing that strikes you is the design. The layout is fine, but the graphics are disappointing with some boring images and poorly cropped photos. The site feels flat and colourless. The bookshop appears to have a different designer who has been much more successful in creating a visual identity for this section. Why does everyone look so miserable on the main site?

My second criticism is the content. One of the main goals must be to signpost me to information and other sites that will answer my questions.

But Age Concern has given greater pre-cedence to the way documents are described than what they are about. Can I be bothered with the difference between a Policy Paper and a Policy Position Paper? What are Services Development Documents anyway? These names reflect an internal language rather than the needs of the audience.

It is this failure to recognise different audiences that is perhaps the major weakness of this site. The designers have not thought about what visitors will want to see or find out. Where they have identified a task, such as 'keeping up with news', they haven't made it user-friendly.

Why have a list of hard-to-read pale-blue news headlines with no sense of the stories behind them? Show me the important stories. Illustrate them with appropriate images. Engage me in conversations on the issues behind the stories. Interesting topics are presented in a flat way.

The search tool is not adequate either. It fails to produce results for topics I'd expect to find, such as 'grants for carers'. I know there are grants because I can find them quickly using Google. People will leave a site if its search results pages say there are no results. I hope Age Concern is recording, analysing and responding to the unsucc-essful enquiries.

To be fair, the site does cover most of the functional areas I'd expect from an important charity. It does allow me to donate online, the shop is appealing and useful, and Age Concern provides a link to over-50s chat forum, the Baby Boomer Bistro, which seems active and interesting. I just wish they had let me listen to real people on the rest of the site.

And now for the rest ...

A tour around the UK charity sector reveals a group of organisations that seem to be making better use of the internet. If only most corporate or retail sites were as effective in communicating what they do and res-ponding to their audiences.

Oxfam (www.oxfam.org.uk) has a site with an excellent, clear design, well thought-out content and real attempts to engage me in its work. I really did spend a long time here. The articles have a tone that makes them worth reading and are ill-ustrated with links to things I can do or follow up on. We hear powerful stories from real people rather than press releases.

Apart from Oxfam, I was most impressed by the offering from Friends of the Earth (www.foe.co.uk) simply because of the tone and engagement of the site. The design is both simple and effective, but where the site really comes into its own is in its targeting of different sections for different audiences. There are clearly identified destinations for groups such as media, campaigners, corporate inves-tors and schools. The wealth of resources here is amazing.

The Samaritans (www.samaritans.org.uk) recently relaunched its site and while small it is effective in answering my questions and helping me understand what it does and why. It has emphasised its commitment to anonymity by letting me turn off its branding on the site. This is a simple idea that emphasises its commitment to confidentiality, even if you're browsing in an internet cafe. I would have liked an alternative to the dynamic menus though.

Having explored Age Concern's site, I have to say I prefer the approach of Help the Aged (www.helptheaged.org.uk). Its site has stronger narrative content and better signposting, but the search tool could be better. Compare it to the search facility on the NSPCC site (www.nspcc.org.uk). I liked Help the Aged's simple calls to action though, like 'make your home secure', on the right of the page.

We've just been bombarded by publicity for Red Nose Day 03 and both the BBC (www.bbc.co.uk/rednoseday) and Comic Relief (www.rednoseday.com) sites had their usual flair and polish. I preferred the BBC design, but the Red Nose Day site was packed with ideas of things to do. It took a while to load, but I cannot fault them on their consistency of brand and image. This year's big innovation is to drive more of its donations online - no mean feat technically - on the day itself.

Accessibility is of rising importance everywhere and the char-ity sector in particular cannot afford to exclude any of its potential supporters or partners.

Most sites have taken this to heart with at least the opportunity to change font size and text-based navigation. But where is the Samaritan's text site? Of course some, such as the Royal National Institute for the Blind (www.rnib.org.uk), have gone further by offering consultancy to other web businesses.

I would like to see more web sites experimenting with layout, which can be achieved with cascading style sheets in order to make them easier to explore, not only for screen readers but also for handheld and mobile browsers. What then makes the most successful sites in this sector? A combination of interesting content, opportunities to participate, methods of giving and personality.

TOP FIVE CHARITY SITES
Rank Web address                         Visits     Bookmarks
                                   (% relative           (%)
                                 market share)
1    www.nationaltrust.org.uk             19.42          4.67
2    www.bbc.co.uk/rednoseday             12.89          0.05
3    www.rspb.org.uk                       8.52          4.71
4    www.rspca.com                         7.94          2.07
5    www.oxfam.org.uk                      6.09          3.20
Rank Web address                          Pages     Bookmarks
                                   (% relative           (%)
                                 market share)
1    www.nationaltrust.org.uk             32.55          4.67
2    www.rspb.org.uk                      11.59          4.71
3    www.rspca.com                         8.98          2.07
4    www.ncdl.org.uk                       5.00          2.98
5    www.oxfam.org.uk                      4.61          3.20
Rank Web address                    Avg session     Bookmarks
                                time (minutes)           (%)
1    www.ncdl.org.uk                       7:57          2.98
2    www.rspca.com                         7:24          2.07
3    www.barnardos.org.uk                  7:11          4.10
4    www.samaritans.org.uk                 6:47          1.13
5    www.actionaid.org                     6:47          4.86
Source: Hitwise. Figures for week ending 1 March 2003