CSCI Wins New Statesman Awards
01/07/2006 - London
CSCI Wins New Statesman Awards
The Commission for Social Care Inspection's (CSCI) website designed by Reading Room and based on technology from Immediacy has won the prestigious Accessibility award at the New Statesman New Media Awards 2006.
The Power of Ideas was the theme of this year's awards with a special emphasis on innovation, usability and efficiency. The audience at The Serpentine Gallery heard how the CSCI website (http://www.csci.org.uk) won the Accessibility award for maximising access to information through its use of new media technology.
CSCI and Reading Room worked hard to make the site accessible beyond the strict parameters of the W3C guidelines. The new website is much easier to use and has been given the RNIB See It Right logo and the Plain English Campaign internet kite mark.
As part of the design Reading Room implemented an Immediacy 5.2 Content Management System (CMS) to create and maintain the site's content. CSCI chose Immediacy for its ease of use and in-built accessibility compliance checker that checks content as it is being created and edited. Reading Room also implemented Immediacy on the Disability Rights Commission web site.
The CSCI website allows users to share concerns and complaints about a social care service, their council or CSCI. It also provides a directory which has details for all CSCI registered service providers and their associated, free inspection reports. The site offers great usability through its use of audio, easy to read pages, illustrations and clear instructions for use in eight different languages.
Margaret Manning, Reading Room CEO said "We were thrilled to work with CSCI on this project and are delighted that the long hours that the CSCI and Reading Room team put in to complete this site within a tight timeframe has been recognised in this way".
Nigel Jackson, Immediacy CEO commented "We're delighted that CSCI has won this award for Accessibility. It bears testimony to Reading Room's strength and expertise in design and confirms the real world value of the accessibility features built into our CMS solution. We've worked hard to develop an intuitive and comprehensive accessibility compliance checker that does not interfere with the end user experience."
