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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Access to justice and advice sector issues  →  Thread

a new rightsnet for a new year

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shawn mach
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Hi everyone ..

We wanted to share some exciting rightsnet news with you - well we’re quite excited(!) - and also an update about rightsnet subscriptions for 2015 ….

Following the fantastic response to the user survey we ran earlier in the year, we’ve been busy working away on a new version of the site for launch in early 2015. I’m pleased to say that we’ve been able to incorporate lots of your suggestions and hope that you’ll agree that the changes we’re making will make the site even more useful to you in your work.

I’ve attached a screen shot here to give you a feeling for how the new site will look, and as you can see it will look very different ….. however the work we’ve been doing has not all been about aesthetics, and so some of the other changes to look out for include –

• case law: over the last 10 years we’ve published summaries of and links to almost 2,000 Upper Tribunal decisions to the briefcase area of the site, whilst for historic reasons we’ve published other welfare rights case law – for example judgments of the higher courts – to the news area of the site. However, with the launch of the new version of rightsnet we’re taking the opportunity to launch a new welfare rights case law area which will form a single database of all benefit decisions and judgments searchable by jurisdiction.

• other areas of law: the new site will also give us the opportunity to provide a more streamlined service in our ‘other’ areas of law – debt, housing, employment and community care. For the first time, the more than 4,000 items we’ve published over the last 4½ years will be available from the navigation bar, and each area of law will be broken down into separate news and case law channels, mirroring the approach we’re taking with our welfare rights content.

• ‘my rightsnet’: we want to give you more control over your use of the site and so are launching a new ‘my rightsnet’ area for registered users. This will provide you not only with control over your account information (login, passwords, registered email address etc) but, for those of you who have a subscription to rightsnet, will also better enable you to manage your subscription. In addition, a new ‘favourites’ facility will enable you to favourite or bookmark rightsnet content or discussion threads; and a new messaging facility will enable you to contact other registered users outside of the discussion forum.

• search: we hope that the changes we’re making to our news and case law areas across our five areas of law will in themselves make it easier to quickly find the information that you need (amongst the almost 15,000 items we’ve published over the years … gulp!), but are also taking the opportunity to make some improvements to search, involving not only more powerful search functionality, but also bespoke search engines tailored to each area of the site.

• responsive design: we know that more and more of you are accessing rightsnet via mobile and tablet devices (in fact mobile use of rightsnet has doubled in the last 2 years, and tablet use has tripled) and so we’ve also made sure that the new version of rightsnet is more device friendly, for example whether you’re using a mobile or tablet the new site will be much easier to navigate.

If all goes to plan, we’ll be launching the new version of rightsnet in January 2015, and I’ll provide an update nearer the time …. but do feel free to post any questions here in the meantime, or contact me directly via .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Ps: in other news, in recognition of the fact that we know that funding is ever more difficult across the sector, I’m also happy to confirm that we’re freezing our subscription prices for 2015.

Hope that all sounds good!?

Cheers - Shawn

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1964
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Deputy Manager, Reading Community Welfare Rights Unit

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Ooohh- how exciting!

I like the screen shot Shawn. It’ll probably take me ages to get to grips with it being a tree-hugging dinosaur but hey- I’m sure I shall get there in the end and I expect it’ll be fun…

All sounds most interesting.

May I take the opportunity to thank you all for everything you do and to wish you a very Happy Christmas? I don’t know what we would do without you (and no- I haven’t been on the sherry…)

past caring
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Looks great. But who is the new message from in the top menu bar?

Probably shawn telling me precisely why another of my rants has had to be deleted/severely edited. ;)

past caring
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And that last post reminds me - can we have (limited) smilies and a better html functionality in the forum?

shawn mach
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Cheers 1964 ..... nothing wrong with tree hugging .... or dinosaurs ... or sherry!!

Simon .... I s’pose you’d like an avatar as well?!

1964
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shawn - 18 December 2014 11:50 AM

Cheers 1964 ..... nothing wrong with tree hugging .... or dinosaurs ... or sherry!!

Simon .... I s’pose you’d like an avatar as well?!

Thanks Shawn.

Actually….could we have avatars and smilies? Could we? Please??

shawn mach
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Oh no ..... it was all going so well!!

1964
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Sorry…..(hangs head and sidles off….)

Surrey Adviser
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Shawn -  please!  No avatars or smilies

Dan_Manville
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Smilies at least… 😊 Emoticons have an important role in online communications :p

Mike Hughes
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On a marginally more serious note…

Avatars - probably acceptable to most people provided you can click on one and see key information about a poster and maybe a zoomed up version.

Smileys/emoticons - please remember that in using these you are excluding the visually impaired who may either not be able to read them or whose screen readers may not be able to do so.

shawn mach
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Hi Nigel -

In fact you can already manage the frequency of your email newsletters .... see the ‘update mailing list preferences’ link at the foot of the email

Cheers - Shawn

Mike Hughes
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I demand the Rightsnet keystroke logger. Able to identify when I am sat at my keyboard but there has been no activity for 15 minutes. I am either busy researching or bored.

On detecting this, Rightsnet should be able to deliver me your latest wit and wisdom in a timely manner to alleviate my boredom.

Jon (CANY)
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Mike Hughes - 22 December 2014 02:18 PM

Smileys/emoticons - please remember that in using these you are excluding the visually impaired who may either not be able to read them or whose screen readers may not be able to do so.

Isn’t this what the alt attribute is for?

[edit to remove a sample html tag, which of course doesn’t show up in the post ... ]

[ Edited: 22 Dec 2014 at 05:36 pm by Jon (CANY) ]
Gareth Morgan
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I’d like the ability to have Bold and italic :-)

I’d really like to be able to include images for things like tables and documents (and not embarrassing photos of people dancing on tables at NAWRA meetings).

[ Edited: 22 Dec 2014 at 05:40 pm by Gareth Morgan ]
Gareth Morgan
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What?   (This is getting confusing with overlapping edits and comments /withdrawals.)

[ Edited: 22 Dec 2014 at 05:43 pm by Gareth Morgan ]
Jon (CANY)
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Sorry .. I meanto say that this sort of thing should make smileys more accessible:
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_img_alt.asp

Assuming rightsnet can use those tags, and subject to confirmation that the screen-readers people use can read out the alt attribute.

Mike Hughes
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Craven CAB welfare benefits - 22 December 2014 05:11 PM
Mike Hughes - 22 December 2014 02:18 PM

Smileys/emoticons - please remember that in using these you are excluding the visually impaired who may either not be able to read them or whose screen readers may not be able to do so.

Isn’t this what the alt attribute is for?

[edit to remove a sample html tag, which of course doesn’t show up in the post ... ]

Apologies for the belated response on this.

The answer is yes… and no, sadly.

Screen readers can generally read ALT tags but rare is the site where people remember to load everything with a fully formatted ALT description. It’s often missing or abbreviated/truncated and so of marginal use often times. Lost track of how many site admins. say “but it’s our policy” when what they really mean is that it’s their policy; they do it when they do stuff on the site but the people they’ve trained to do day to day stuff keep forgettting because it doesn’t seem that important.

Then there’s the issue of whether the site layout allows you to get to the ALT tag in the first place. Many is the site which takes screen readers around the edges and then into the middle rather than in the order everyone else would read/navigate a page. Better still all those wonderful e-learning modules organisations buy into which use Flash or Flash mixed with anything else they feels looks “attractive” (based presumably on the assumption that e-learning is only persuasive against traditional methods if it’s cheaper but glossier). On those you can get a screen reader to read a frame but where it jumps to next is totally random.

There is also the small thing that screen readers are used by a minority of the visually impaired. People have some misunderstandings about such users. “Can’t you just zoom like everyone else does?” Sadly, many VIs simply don’t work like that. Zooming can remove sharpness and unless you have a VI that allows you to read body language or have done extensive reading to understand the nuances between such things then it’s most likely zooming will leave you none the wiser.

The most accessible version is simply “no emoticons”. They were designed for an environment pre-smartphone and mobile broadband and a site like this doesn’t need them. The fact that people may still like to use them in other contexts is nothing to the point. This site has a different audience and seems to want to set standards rather than exclude.

shawn mach
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Cheers Mike ... that’s really useful

Mike Hughes
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shawn - 05 January 2015 12:26 PM

Cheers Mike ... that’s really useful

:)

And yes, I am trying to be funny!!!

nevip
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Right class, face the front and listen carefully.  Pay attention at the back.  That includes you Higginbottom.  And put Richardson down.  To ensure that Rightsnet proceeds in its highly professional manner the following protocols have been put in place.  The use of emoticons and avatars will not be allowed.  Neither will we allow lol’s, like’s. lmao’s, hashtags (whatever the hell they are) and anything else that might appear on mytwitterspacefacebook.  Are you chewing Blenkinsop?  Spit it out boy.  Proper grammar and syntax will be observed at all times.  As will the correct placement of apostrophes, commas, semi-colons and colons.  The use of slang, implied derogatory terms and expletives, such as ‘the rozzers’, ‘get her’ and ‘bugger me sideways’ will be frowned on and severely punished.  Latin phrases such as res ipsa loquitur, pima facie, inter alia, ellen de generes and duran duran will be deleted.  The use of ulta vires will be allowed providing you show your workings out in the margin. 

Finally, anyone caught using split infinitives, double negatives and phrases such as “moving forwards” will be taken out and summarily executed.  That means shot without trial Jenkins minor.  Any questions?  No Perkins, the use of the word journey indicating anything other than the physical movement of a body in time and space is not acceptable either.  No Smythe-Jones, you may not use the toilet.  Yes Richardson, Higginbottom is a complete halfwit.  Any more questions?  No.  Good.  Now please turn to page 55 of Bertrand Russell’s Fifty ways to leave your lover.

Avery happy new year everyone.

Mike Hughes
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LOL 😊

shawn mach
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blimey Nevip .... candidate for post of the year already!

Pete C
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Could someone get round to Sefton ASAP, UKIP seem to have kidnapped Nevip!

Gareth Morgan
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😊  [ 😊 ]

Pete C
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Gareth Morgan - 05 January 2015 01:15 PM

:-)  [ :-) ]

Morgan, report to the headmasters office immediately!

1964
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Oh I do love you lot!! I haven’t laughed so much since the old queen died…

Mike Hughes
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Got to be a prize for the first person who can produce an emoticon version of nevips third “slang, implied derogatory terms and expletives” on line 7 of post #21.

I suspect an avatar with same would result in a lifetime ban!!!

Paul_Treloar_CPAG
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In view of occurrences like this thread, is there any chance of a members-only style area where registered subscribers (and by default, professional advisers) could share confidential information resources easily, without closing down the forums to other visitors?

Just a thought.

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Mike Hughes - 05 January 2015 02:59 PM

Got to be a prize for the first person who can produce an emoticon version of nevips third “slang, implied derogatory terms and expletives” on line 7 of post #21.

I suspect an avatar with same would result in a lifetime ban!!!

How about a little picture of a certain bald double barrelled poitician as he is the cause of so many derogatory terms and expletives?

shawn mach
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Hi everyone ...

Just a quick update re our (re)launch plans.

Looks like everything is set to go now for us to go live on Wednesday next week (28th) ...

There will be some down time through the earlier part of the day - apologies in advance - but we’re hoping to be back with you by home time

Have a good weekend when it comes .....

Cheers -  Shawn

[ Edited: 23 Jan 2015 at 02:09 pm by shawn mach ]