Channel Computing are specialising increasingly in the provision of Content Managed web sites - where the sites owners can easily update the pages of their own site, without recourse to expensive developers every time a page needs to be changed.

The benefits of a CMS (Content management system) over a traditional web site are too numerous to list here, but you can view some of what is possible in our projects archive. A good CMS is also scalable, and can be developed to a fully functional e-commerce or community portal without having to stop and start again.

We have two main approaches open to us, either to develop specific CMS functionality for an individual client, or to use one of the high quality open source systems which are now readily available. Each approach has its benefits, and our job is to help you navigate through the options, and achieve a site that really enhances your business.

Accessible web sites are those which facilitate easy access for people that are handicapped in any way.

Typically an accessible site might consider the needs of the elderly, or those who are hard of sight and using screen reader software to "talk" them through the contents of a web page.

There are many factors involved in making a site accessible, but a few of them include:

• The use of clear large fonts, contrasting against the background to make them easier to read for someone that is hard of sight.
• Colour blindness is an important factor, and an accessible site may not use colour to convey the meaning of the page.
• Images and multimedia files must also have substitute texts, so that someone who cannot see the image or media file does not lose the meaning that it conveys.
  
• Moving images, fancy backgrounds, flashing screens can all have an impact on accessibility, as can some of the scripts and programming languages that are often used to create a web site.

As a business it is to your advantage to make your site accessible, not only because it increases your potential audience to include people who are hard of vision or suffering from other handicaps, but also because you have a legal obligation not to discriminate against the handicapped.  In extreme cases this can lead to legal action, such as the famous class action against Target.com, a famous test case by the National Federation of the Blind.

Web Design is a fascinating area and of great importance to your and every business, both here in Cornwall and further afield.

Unfortunately it means different things to different people, and some of the various approaches will have massively different outcomes for your web site.

Traditionally web design was done by the same people that produced your business cards and leaflets, meaning that in many cases the visual aspect was the only or main consideration.  While a pretty web site is without doubt a delightful thing, it may do nothing at all to help promote your business, bring you visitors or help you undertake the process of converting them to long term customers.

You may have read elsewhere on this site that for us the primary consideration of web design is the financial success of our customer, so you will understand that the visual element of web design is of secondary importance.

So what are the other elements of web design - the ones you can't see, but which make the difference between a successful or a failing (lonely) web site?

We develop and maintain a broad base of business applications, having experience of designing and developing high quality software for major blue chip clients world-wide.

Previous projects include implementations in the following technologies:

• Microsoft SQL Server
• Visual Studio.NET
• ASP
• Visual Basic
• Office Suite: Access / Excel / Word.
• ADO, DAO, LINQ, ODBC Databases including Informix, Oracle, MySQL.
• COBOL
• HEAT
• Whitelight OLAP Tools
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