Websites are designed for different purposes: marketing, e-commerce, news, education…  This site was redesigned in 2017/18 to focus on delivering news about our core interests in the urban built environment and life in Hammersmith, indexed by date and topic – typically a project, local issue or geographic area/ward, often tagged with at least two of these.

The site retains, and in some areas restores, the Society’s available electronic records for AGM’s, Awards, and general society admin, going back nearly twenty years, and continues to evolve.  An extensive history section was added under its own menu, sometimes using ‘found material’ going back to beginnings of the Society in the 1960’s. This guide was written partly in response to a survey, to help readers navigate, and get the best out of the site.  In an ideal world it would all be self-evident; while we work on that, please read on, you’ll probably discover a useful tip or two…

Layout and Menus

This site is ‘responsive’ – optimised for desktops, laptops, and mobiles of all types of the last decade, tested using their default browsers & popular current ones: Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari. (See this section regarding social media).

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).  News In Brief is a page specifically provided for a quick scan of recent stories, particularly on smaller screens, where it is shown automatically in place of the desktop/laptop format.

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. 

   News 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.

Categories

To better identify content, we also use categories in some circumstances. Firstly our postings are all categorised by default as News, but where we’re looking for member involvement or feedback (on average about half the posts), they are also tagged as Consultations, shown with the ‘Posted in Consultations’ button at the bottom of the article. Recently we started categorising Award nominations.

Newsletters and member-generated ‘Taking a View‘ articles are also in specific categories. As pdf’s, they are not (yet) indexed, so when we publish, we announce them on the website in a news article which is also 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.

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. 

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 same link symbol as the Wikipedia to indicate links to external websites, in a similar manner to the way we’ve been indicating pdf’s.

Social Media

There are some potential issues with feeds from sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc:

• In our privacy policy we mention that social media sites often use cookies outside our control, and where we show feeds from those sites to provide our up-to-date content on them, these may come into effect.
• 

  Firefox enhanced security

  Some browsers, notably Firefox and Edge, are currently increasing privacy controls to reduce or prevent social media tracking with features such as enhanced tracking protection. This may have the effect of breaking the content we show. You may need to disable these features, or accept the social media content not showing. In the example here, click on the blue shield adjacent to the padlock to adjust Firefox settings.

• Social media sites are in a constant state of flux. As a result, older machines that can no longer be updated – such as older iPads & iPhones, and some browsers may not be able to show some of this content properly, though the situation can and does change in either direction, and without notice.  While we try to minimise problems by using Twitter & Facebook’s own syndication methods / code, several aspects therefore remain outside our control. YMMV!

Getting the best out of the website

• 

  Example of related stories

  The website generates a list of 6 related articles at the bottom of each story. 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 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, depending on your machine type: 
  • Full  – click on a title or ‘Read more’ button;
  • Excerpt – on the desktop/laptop home page;
  • Brief – via News in Brief link on home page, or by default on tablet and mobile home pages, and which, to save space, can also appear as an ‘accordion’ (Recent News example on the right of this page);
  • Masonry – image index style – for example in the recent news section at the foot of the ‘about us’ or on diary pages.
    It’s the same material, just presented in the most appropriate format for the page.  Our survey asks which you prefer, so we can change if members show a strong preference.
• 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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