Bipolar Scotland

Site address: http://www.bipolarscotland.org.uk (opens in a new window)

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: Site revamp, accessibility for cognitive disabilities, move to a CMS

This small but hardworking national charity had reached the end of the line with a homemade Front Page site and needed a professional upgrade.

The critical goal was to make the site accessible to service users with bipolar disorder.  In web accessibility terms, bipolar disorder falls under the category of cognitive/intellectual disabilities, one of the five needs that web accessibility aims to address.  We tend to think of web accessibility as ways to help blind or deaf users view the web, but people with cognitive disabilities can see and hear just fine.  Their issues involve memory, comprehension, attention span, and logic skills.  Creating a site for people with bipolar disorder, who may or may not be experiencing those issues on any given day, poses a particular challenge.  Fortunately I found some fantastic resources on ways to adapt web sites for cognitive disabilities, and even got some advice from a fellow web designer who has Asperger’s Syndrome.

One of the main problems with their old site was a glitchy PHPBB forum which attracted hideous spam by the thousands, which meant that staff were spending all their time purging spam and had no time to update the site as a result.  The forum was the first thing to go, and we simply added prominent links to the Fellowship’s page on Facebook to replace it.

I did the site on WordPress with a heavily modified Arthemia magazine theme and a fantastic array of plugins and tweaks. The most challenging aspect was the tight integration between WPEcommerce, Paypal, and Cforms for their complex membership application process. Other features include an automated events plugin, an Amazon affiliates banner, and Google Analytics tracking, which has provided a critical goldmine of information to help the Fellowship steer their mission.

It’s always a great feeling to help a small charity punch above their weight.  I note with pride that every time Stacey Slater has a bipolar episode on Eastenders, hits on the site go way up, proving that you never quite know when you’ll need your web site to work for you.