Layout and Menus

Responsive: Layouts change depending on screen

This site is ‘fully responsive’ – optimised for desktops, laptops, and mobiles of all types of the last decade or so, tested using their default browsers, and popular current ones: Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari, and even Internet Explorer as old as IE9, though unsupported older browsers should be avoided (IE11 is current today).  Automatic layout & content adjustments as screen sizes vary from 320 wide (an old smartphone, such as an iPhone 4 or 5) to 1920 (full HD).  On mobiles in the normal portrait orientation, the scrolling ‘Featured Award Winners’ disappears, allowing the reader to quickly check news updates. 

News In Brief is a page specifically provided for a quick scan of recent stories, particularly on mobiles.

Mobile menu

We deliberately kept the number of menus to a minimum, and hope that their arrangement is self-explanatory.  On small screens, the conventional horizontal menu is replaced by the well-known ‘hamburger’ menu in the top left corner. Touch this to access the slightly different mobile menu, optimised for smaller screens, including search box & topic shortcuts. 

Finding information

There are three main ways in addition to the menus described above:

1. 

   Tag/Topic “Word Cloud”

   By topic ‘tag’ using the News Topics ‘Word Cloud’ shown, with the text size reflecting the number of articles under each topic. Click on one of the topics to retrieve a list of articles, latest first.
   Explanation:  Each article and newsletter summary is tagged with one or more topics; we choose the topics to match key subject areas, council wards, and projects generating the most news, such as ‘Town Hall’.  Ward-related tags have links to councillors & ward profiles.
   To maintain relevance, we occasionally revise the list as projects start and complete – they may start or cease to have their own dedicated topic but will also appear under more general topics such as ‘Cycling’, ‘Major developments’ or the ward area, such as ‘Broadway’.

2. 

   Search box

   By text search.  A search box is provided at the top right of the header [on mobiles: in the menu].  All site content except the contents of pdf’s is indexed. Type your search term and you’ll be provided with a list of matching articles and newsletter summaries, latest first.

3. 

   Annual selector

   By date.  On the home page between the News Update heading and News Topics cloud is a selector for each year, providing you an archive listing of articles for that year, latest first.

Newsletters are treated as a special category. As pdf’s, they are not (yet) indexed, so when we publish a newsletter, we announce it on the website in a news article which is tagged, providing a way for the above search methods to find these as well other material on the website.

The tags are also active buttons that can be clicked to quickly retrieve a list of all articles under a given topic, in the same way as the ‘Word Cloud’ above.

Example newsletter tags

Planning records

We cross-reference council planning records where possible, using their numbering system, for example 2019/03018/FUL, which can be used in their 🔗 planning portal. We often also provide a direct link to click, since the planning system was upgraded in 2018/19 these links usually work and remain working unlike earlier ones that could be somewhat hit-and-miss.

We used to maintain lists of applications we’d reviewed, but the torrent has become so large that this is now somewhat impractical, and this website serves as a better public record via the search/indexing methods listed above. Historical records are here.

We often keep more extensive paper and/or electronic archives of planning material used in reviews. Contact us if you’d like some information on a project that’s either not on this website or council planning portal, or for which you’d like more information – we may be able to help.

Accessibility

We take accessibility seriously.  We actively test the site to meet 🔗 WCAG 2.1, (ISO/IEC 40500, the standard for website accessibility), and aim to achieve the highest (AAA) rating wherever possible. 

Resizer

OpenDyslexic font for Chrome/Chromium

Text sizes/colours and background colours are chosen to meet these requirements, images are tagged, captioned and identified appropriately, and we provide the text resizer facility on the menu bar (as shown left), for those that need it. The resizer setting is remembered in the browser you’re using, using a ‘non-tracking’ cookie.

Our standard font is Paratype Serif by 🔗 Rospechat, chosen for its legibility.  Readers with Dyslexia may be helped by using the Google Chrome or Chromium open-source browser, and installing the 🔗 OpenDyslexic font for Chrome which works well with this site, including with the text resizer – example shown right.  

Recently, we have started to use the standard Unicode link symbol 🔗 (U+1F517) to indicate/warn of links to external websites.

Other information

• 

  Example of related stories

  The website generates a list of related articles at the bottom of each story, the number has recently been expanded to 6 from the default 3 (common on many websites) to provide a more comprehensive selection. You need to be looking at the full article (hint: click on the title or ‘Read More’) to see the related stories at the foot of each story.

• Images throughout the site are generally shown at modest dimensions to maintain performance, especially on mobiles. Most images have a larger equivalent, including those within collages and featured awards scrollers – we usually provide a link to the largest available by clicking on the image itself – some are very large.
• 

  Example diary (list format)

  Our diary is updated regularly with public consultations, events of interest, and dates of our committee meetings. You can scroll forwards and backwards though the dates with the large arrows shown.  It’s also available as a monthly grid on the dedicated diary page.  Events for today or tomorrow are automatically highlighted at the top of the home page, in a format suiting the screen size, with a link to the diary.
  The diary is based on a public Google calendar to which members can subscribe, so as to have an always-current copy with reminders on their phone or computer. Contact the digital content editor for the details.

• Each article is shown in one of four formats in different parts of the site:  Full (click on title or ‘Read more’ button), Excerpt (as shown on the home page), Brief (News in brief – link on home page) which, to save space, can also appear as an ‘accordion’ (example on the right of this page), and finally in ‘Pinterest‘ image index style – for example the recent news section at the foot of the ‘about us’ or diary pages. It’s the same material, just presented in the most appropriate format for the page.
• Information locations (URL’s) often follow an obvious pattern, with useful shortcut addresses, such as www.hammersmithsociety.org.uk/2019 – all articles in 2019, or www.hammersmithsociety.org.uk/tag/town-hall – for tags / topics, town hall in this case
  www.hammersmithsociety.org.uk/search/bridge – for a search for ‘bridge’

Related pages

Please refer to the following page for information on cookies, encryption, and privacy

• Privacy Policy

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