Radical
Statistics
Progress on Radstats website
Ray Thomas
The design of the template site at http://www.radstats.org.uk has a simple hierarchical structure. The front-page gives leads to details of various Radstats activities (how to join, etc.), to links to related sites - and, in particular, to details of Radstats writings. The main feature of the structure is that it supports access to information on Radstats writings in three ways.
One way is through the name of the publication i.e. the particular issue of Radical Statistics, or through the title of one of the five Radstats books currently in print or in the course of publication. A second way is through a list of sixteen subject-matter heads. Each subject-matter head should lead to a list, given in descending date order, that would bring together Radical Statistics articles, Radstats books, or book chapters relevant to that subject-matter heading. A word search facility provides the third way of accessing information on Radstats publication - and to any other information given on the site.
The template site has been constructed on the assumption that the full text of Radical Statistics articles would be included. But the status of chapters in books is less clear because the publishers may claim copyright and may not give permission for web publication.
Triumph Computers have developed the website on contract with Radstats. This partnership has been fruitful, and I expect that Radstats will continue to get technical support from Triumph Computers. But adding to and maintaining the website will need people with knowledge of the Radstats group and its culture.
Things we all need to know
One of the things I learned in working with Triumph is that the design of well-designed sites is not apparent to the visitors. A good design should meet visitors expectations, capabilities, and needs unobtrusively. But knowledge of the design features of the website will be important for Radstats members whose writings will appear on the site and for those contributing to the development of the site in other ways.
Many web-sites exploit the multi-media capabilities of the Internet. But I did not come across multi-media materials, other than cartoons, in the Radstats archives! The current Radstats website makes minimal use of colour and no use of graphics. The site is almost unusual in being predominantly text based.
Text is easiest to read in short lines - like a newspaper. But the computer screen, unlike the usual printed page, is wider than it is high. The layout of the Radstats website aims to accommodate and where possible exploit this difference. Typically the text of articles occupies only half of the width of the screen. List of articles and chapters are given in tabular form. Such core materials occupy a central vertical band of the screen. The left-hand band of the screen is used for navigation features, and the right-hand band is available for other features.
The most important single thing I learned is that web-sites do not look the same to all visitors. The appearance depends on the browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape), the settings used in browser set by the visitor and upon the screen settings of the visitor's computer. The pages on the Radstats website are mostly set to 600 pixels wide because many computer screens are set to 640 pixels wide x 480 high. If your computer screen is set to 1024 x 768 the website pages will occupy only part of your screen. If the Radstats pages were set to 800 pages many visitors would not be able to see the full screen without scrolling.
This article is printed in Bookman Old Style that is a serif typeface (i.e. with curly bits) that is usual with paper publications. The website uses Sans serif typefaces (i.e. without curly bits like this bit of Tahoma typeface) that is recommended for screen use. Your browser will generally follow the serif/sans-serif distinction, but the particular typeface you see depends upon your browser.
The design of the Radstats website uses a lot of small typefaces. It has been assumed that typical visitors, who already have the skills of reading statistical tables, will want to skim-read the screen pages. Browsers usually have a facility for changing typeface size so visitors can increase the size of the screen typeface for legibility if they wish to do so. An increase in the size of the typeface reduces the number of words per line and increases the number of lines, but should not affect content.
Future possibilities
At present the website for Radstats is provided gratis by the Free4All Internet Service Provider. Free4All are not the only ISP currently offering free web space. But all ISPs have to finance their systems. Radstats has to look forward at some time in the future to paying for web space, or suffering from advertising, or maybe moving to another ISP provider.
Radstats could think about moving to another free ISP provider like a university. The Open University would be willing in principle to host the site. But it would not be easy to arrange for access for adding or rewriting for non-members of the university, and the OU would not offer technical support. Might other universities be more flexible/generous?
As material is added to the website a search facility will become more useful. The one-word PinPoint system used on the current site is free. But to get more than one-word searches we shall need a more sophisticated search engine.
The site currently has a 'Links' section that includes the web addresses of a number of sites related to Radstats interests. We could aim to expand this kind of facility to make the website a 'Portal' for statistics material - like the University of Michigan site at http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/stats.html.
The future development of content of the site will depend very much upon members' contribution. We particularly need volunteers who are familiar with the processes involved to help put new issues of the journal and historical material on the site.
Users of the web expect to find up-to-date information. A particular problem for any site run by volunteers is try to keep the site up to date. To get the site up-to-date and to keep it up-to-date we shall need information of relevance to Radstats from members and in particular from Radstats activists.
For the time being you should send all information that you think should be on the website to me - preferably by email or other digital form.
Ray Thomas
Social Sciences
The Open University
35 Passmore
Milton Keynes
MK6 3DY
Tel: 01908 679081
Fax: 01908 550401
E-mail: r.thomas@open.ac.uk
