Voluntary Arts Network aims to “promote participation in the arts and crafts across the UK and Republic of Ireland. [They] recognise that they are a key part of our culture and as such they are absolutely vital to our health, social and economic development.” As part of their range of information and advice services, VAN’s website is a key tool in their mission to foster the development of the voluntary arts sector, and to improve the knowledge and skills of those working in the sector.

Back in 2005, VAN embarked on a project to update the visual look of their website, to bring the site into compliance with accessibility standards and to improve the way in which information is organised on the site. They asked papergecko to develop a series of fully accessible page templates to be used in a comprehensive redesign of the website.

Working in partnership with Chris Evans, papergecko delivered a series of templates which comply with Priority 3 (AAA) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. The templates also made significant improvements to the website’s information architecture, functionality and usability. The templates were also designed to fit into a preexisting content management system, with a minimum of adjustment to the back-end system.

Due to an organisational restructure, the project is currently on hold, but we have included a couple of screenshots the templates to give a flavour of the changes in store.

Template for List of Articles (foot of page)

Forms example