Flow was recently awarded the tender for the design and development of the official government website for the Ministry of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities.
The Union Buildings. Photo courtesy gravitywave
The ministry is a new one under Jacob Zuma’s presidency, and its main purpose is to ensure the advancement and protection of the rights of women, children and persons with disabilities.
It strives to build a society that does not unfairly discriminate against, abuse or exploit any of these groups. The ministry also does planning, policy guidance, tracks development progress and implements measures to ensure that these groups are empowered and able to advance themselves. Other ministry objectives include protecting and promoting human dignity, equality and freedom.
This website project presents an engaging new challenge for Flow, because it falls directly under the president’s office. We are tasked with designing and building a site that sits comfortably within the government guidelines and identity, while at the same time producing a site that is visually dynamic, interactive, informative and intuitive for a wide range of users.
Says Flow’s Managing Director Tiffany Turkington, “We feel privileged to be working on a site of such national importance. While we work with many organisations closely related to the government, such as the Government Employees’ Pension Fund, the Airports Company of South Africa, and South Africa Tourism, among others, we’ve never worked directly with the presidency before. We’re honoured and excited to be doing this site.”
An essential part of the project is designing and programming the site for persons with disabilities. Working in conjunction with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), we have come up with guidelines and processes that follow international standards of catering for the needs of blind people on the internet, as well as people with other disabilities that effect the way that they interactive with the web.
We’ll be launching the site in a few weeks’ time, so watch this space!