I’ve been working with the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI) , a trade union funded Irish think tank, on a powerful new tool designed to provide unions and the wider public with detailed insights into Ireland’s economic sectors. It was recently launched at the Labour Market Conference at Ulster University and is completely free to access. This new facility is a collection of online dashboards that offer a comprehensive view of employment trends, working conditions, and business performance across 19 sectors and over 50 sub-sectors. By making this data more easily accessible via the user

Historically, electronic files have been stored on drives, in a hierarchical folder structure. This may be on a local desktop or laptop for individuals, but organisations have tended to use network drives. With the rise of cloud storage, the traditional drive approach is being replaced with online document management systems. Many organisations are making this switch, and the pandemic and new hybrid working model has accelerated this change. It’s much easier to work remotely and collaborate on a modern, cloud-based document management platform. SharePoint, Microsoft’s flagship document

I once carried out a site audit for a large, information heavy website. The site wasn’t getting as many visitors through search engines as they’d hoped, and so I was carrying out a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) analysis to help spot the issues that were holding it back. I soon discovered that, due to a quirk of how it had been built, most of the content pages on the site were being duplicated. If you took these duplicate pages away, the site was about a third of the size. Having duplicate content and is generally seen as bad for websites. While Google doesn’t directly punish you for

Understanding how to write for websites can make a big difference to the readability of a web page. It’s surprising how much an online page of text can be improved by following some simple guidelines. Reading text on a screen is different to reading print. People tend to scan content online, only reading a proportion of the words. A study by usability guru Jakob Nielsen discovered that: “on the average webpage, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely”. Here are some simple guidelines to help you make your writing easier to read on websites

If a website has a lot of content and information, then it’s important to provide tools to help visitors navigate through the content to find what they are interested in. This is where website taxonomies come in

I’ve been working with the TUC on the development of their new Intranet. It’s just been launched and is developed entirely in SharePoint. The TUC uses the Microsoft 365 platform as their core business software, for example, for email and document management. A key part of this offering is SharePoint online - a powerful document management and file storage facility. SharePoint can be complicated to set-up and migrating from a traditional, server based, file system to SharePoint is a hefty project. It also requires training and support, as it’s quite different for users who aren’t familiar with

I’ve been working with unionlearn to create a range of new tools for apprentices and those thinking of becoming apprentices. Called Apprenticeship Essentials, this suite of online resources can be accessed either via a dedicated app or on through the unionlearn website. Apprenticeship Essentials has range of features, from pay checking and guidance to elearning and job vacancies. Some of these require registration, but all are free to use. There are guides to apprenticeship basics, entering the world of work, employment rights and how trade unions can help in the workplace. There is also a

Unionlearn, the learning and skills organisation of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has recently launched a new careers area on their website called ‘Careerszone’. The aim is to provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ with information and resources on careers. I’ve led on the development of this new facility, which uses official ‘big data’ sources to generate careers data alongside other resources. One of the key tools is a comprehensive careers directory, which has a detailed breakdown of almost 400 occupations as classified by the Office for National Statistics. This includes job descriptions, required

A couple of years ago, I looked at the sizes of the websites of all the TUC affiliated unions, to see how they compared. I’ve found myself coming back to this analysis quite often. Various unions have wanted an idea of how large their website is compared to others, or have wanted to judge how their website has changed since a redesign. As a result, I thought it would be useful to update these metrics. For the sake of this comparison, only pages publically indexed in Google are included. It is impossible to include members’ only pages, so please be aware of this limitation. Also, some pages may

I’ve been working on a website for a new initiative, designed to encourage greater diversity and inclusion in the investment and savings industry. The site has recently gone live, and can be seen at http://diversityproject.com. The project started after a group of leaders in the investment industry got together in early 2016 and decided to take action to accelerate progress towards a more representative workforce in the sector. One of the driving forces behind it is the Helena Morrissey, the Chair of the Investment Association and former CEO of Newton Investment Management. She also set-up the